Less Pay and More Sensitivity? Institutional Investor Heterogeneity and CEO Pay

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1719-1746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae Yong Shin ◽  
Jeongil Seo

In this article, the authors develop and test a theory on the effect of institutional investor heterogeneity on CEO pay. Their theory predicts that institutional investors’ incentives and capabilities to monitor CEO pay are determined by the fiduciary responsibilities, conflicts of interest, and information asymmetry that institutional investors face. Their theory suggests, in contrast to previous literature, that public pension funds and mutual funds exert different effects on CEO pay at their portfolio firms because they do not have the same monitoring incentives and capabilities. Using a longitudinal sample of S&P 1500 firms for the years 1998 to 2002, the authors find that public pension fund ownership is more negatively—indeed, oppositely—associated with both the level of CEO pay and CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity than mutual fund ownership. Their findings suggest that (a) researchers’ use of institutional investor classifications that do not distinguish public pension fund ownership and mutual fund ownership can be misleading and (b) while CEO pay critics have called for pay plans that are in line with the “less pay and more sensitivity” principle, this may be an ineffective goal to pursue.

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Bianchi ◽  
Luca Enriques

his paper tries to answer two questions: first, whether the changes in the law resulting from the 1998 reform are able to positively affect the attitude to activism of institutional investors in Italy; and second, whether, legal rules aside, it is reasonable to expect significant institutional investor activism in Italy. We provide both an empirical analysis of the factors affecting institutional investor activism in Italy and a legal analysis of the most relevant changes in the Italian mutual funds and corporate laws, following the 1998 reform. The empirical analysis shows that institutional shareholdings and investment strategies are compatible with the hypothesis that institutional investors can play a significant role in the corporate governance of Italian listed companies. However, a curb to their playing such an active role may derive from the predominance of mutual fund management companies belonging to banking groups (giving rise to conflicts of interest) and from the prevailing ownership structure of listed companies, which are still dominated by controlling shareholders holding stakes higher than, or close to, the majority of the capital (implying a weaker bargaining power of institutions vis-à-vis controllers). The analysis of the legal changes prompted by the 1998 financial markets and corporate law reform indicates that the legal environment is now definitely more favorable to institutional investor activism than before. However, the Italian legal environment proves still to be little favorable to institutional investor activism, when compared to that of the U.S. or the U.K.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Simeonidis ◽  
Dafni Diliagka ◽  
Anna Tsetoura

This paper focuses on the pensioners of the Greek public pension fund for the selfemployed (OAEE) and is divided into two parts. The first part comprises calculations of pension reductions in certain cases for the selfemployed. The analysis of the former illustrates the great difference in handling pensioners<br />receiving low and high old-age pension benefits. The second part analyses the legal protection of the high-earnings pensioners precipitated by the Greek financial crisis. It is concluded that while there is no existing legal protection, there are some moral and legal arguments in support of their protection to<br />ensure that their legal status is not undermined due to restricted financial resources.


2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-64
Author(s):  
Keith P. Ambachtsheer

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Monika Berg

Abstract As the urgency for green transformation grows, the question of whether finance capital can be harnessed to promote green transformation has been raised. Public pension funds are of particular interest since they are publicly governed, have long-term interest, and are growing in proportion to the global investment capital. However, transformative change demands a reprioritization of fundamental values in terms of trade-offs among economic, environmental, and social ends. This article identifies shifts in value judgments in public pension fund investments and particularly focuses on the institutional constraints by which value (re)priorities are resisted by investigating Swedish public pension funds. While there are signs of environmental embedding of the economy, I also note neutralization of the role and investment strategies of the funds, which has a stabilizing rather than a transformative function. The neutralization constrains deep green transformation, which demands politicization of the role of institutional investors.


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