TY  - JOUR
AU  - Abowd,John M.
TI  - Does Performance-Based Managerial Compensation Affect Subsequent Corporate Performance?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3149
PY  - 1989
Y2  - October 1989
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3149
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3149.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John M. Abowd
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
261 Ives Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel: 607/255-8024
Fax: 866/873-9078
E-Mail: John.Abowd@cornell.edu
AB  - An effective performance-based compensation system must increase the probability of high performance corporate outcomes in order to justify the incremental expense relative to a straight salary system. A positive relation between current performance and current compensation indicates that the pay system is performance-based in practice, if not explicitly. This study considers whether increasing the sensitivity of current compensation to current performance is associated with higher performance in the future. For accounting-based performance measures, there is only weak evidence that greater performance-based compensation is associated with improved future performance. However, for economic and market performance measures, there is stronger evidence. Payment of an incremental 10% bonus for good economic performance is associated with a 30 to 90 basis point increase in the expected after tax gross economic return in the following fiscal year. Payment of an incremental raise of 10' following a good stock market performance is associated with a 400 to 1200 basis point increase in expected total shareholder return. These results are comparable in magnitude when compared to the intrinsic variability of the performance measure considered.
ER  -