THE IMPACT ON CHIEF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION PAY GAP OF INDEPENDENCE, EXPERTISE, AND ACTIVITY OF REMUNERATION AND AUDIT COMMITTEES: THE CASE OF PAKISTAN.

Abstract

Agency theorists suggest that top executives are naturally interested in protecting their self-interest at the expense of shareholders through higher compensation and perquisites. To minimize the financial consequences of the implied principal-agent problem, companies use corporate governance mechanisms to redirect agents’ behaviour to realign these interests with the shareholder’s concerns. This study examines the impact on executive compensation of the independence, expertise, and activity of remuneration and audit committees for the companies which are continuously listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2019. Using ordinary least squares regressions, this study reveals several noteworthy findings. Firstly, regarding the remuneration committees, the results of regression show that, in line with the agency theory perspective, the level of independence exerts a statistically significant negative impact on the relative CEO compensation. Secondly, the expertise of the remuneration committee members demonstrates a significant negative influence on relative executive compensation. Thirdly, with respect to the audit committees, the results indicate that contrary to expectation, independence is significantly positively correlated with relative chief executive compensation. Thus, we may surmise that audit committee members may be pressured by autocratic CEOs to raise their remuneration package. These findings hold true even after conducting various additional analyses and robustness tests, ensuring their validity and reliability.

The study makes three important contributions. Firstly, it uncovers the trends in chief executive compensation across different industrial sectors in Pakistan. Secondly, the current study reveals the considerable pay gap between a CEO and other executives in Pakistan. Lastly, the study is one of the few studies to investigate the role of remuneration and audit committees in moderating the pay gap between the CEO and other executives in context of Pakistan. These findings have implications for the board of directors, executive head-hunters, and remuneration consultants to help them understand the sector-wise trends in CEO compensation in Pakistan. Further, these have policy implications for the regulators and policymakers as these findings can be operationalized by enacting regulations that promote the independence and expertise of the remuneration committees of the board.