Executive Compensation And Macroeconomic Fluctuations

Macroeconomic fluctuations affect corporations' performance through demand and cost conditions. Incentive effects of performance-based compensation schemes for management may be weakened or biased by macroeconomic influences if management is unable to forecast macroeconomic fluctuations or unable to adjust operations in response to changes in macroeconomic conditions. In this paper, the authors analyze the impact of macroeconomic, industry and firm-specific factors on salaries and bonus of CEOs in 131 Swedish corporations during the period 2001-2006. A distinction is made between anticipated and unanticipated macroeconomic fluctuations.