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Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936–2005

Frydman, Carola, Saks, Raven E.·2010·Review of Financial Studies
DOI 10.1093/rfs/hhp120
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Abstract

We analyze the long-run trends in executive compensation using a new dataset of top officers of large firms from 1936 to 2005. The median real value of compensation was remarkably flat from the late 1940s to the 1970s, revealing a weak relationship between pay and aggregate firm growth. By contrast, this correlation was much stronger in the past thirty years. This historical perspective also suggests that compensation arrangements have often helped to align managerial incentives with those of shareholders because executive wealth was sensitive to firm performance for most of our sample. These new facts pose a challenge to several common explanations for the rise in executive pay since the 1980s.

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Metadata

Authors
Frydman, C., & Saks, R. E.
Venue
Review of Financial Studies
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2010-02-02
Volume
23
Issue
5
Pages
2099-2138
ISSN
  • 0893-9454 (ISSN-L)
  • 1465-7368
DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhp120
OpenAlex
W2149668926
Cited by
604
References
2
FWCI
167.69
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936–2005. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1093/rfs/hhp120
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Frydman, C., & Saks, R. E. (2010). Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936–2005. Review of Financial Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhp120

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