Regulating Executive Remuneration after the Global Financial Crisis: Common Law Perspectives

Abstract:     
Executive pay has become a regulatory flashpoint of the global financial crisis. In contrast to the traditional non-interventionist approach to executive compensation, it has galvanized regulators around the world to search for effective responses to the perceived problem of executive pay.

These developments have also shifted the focus of research in the area of executive pay. Although since the 1990s, there has been much research on the determinants of executive pay, there was far less on policies to control executive remuneration. The global financial crisis has altered this. Executive compensation is once again portrayed as a corporate governance problem in search of a solution.

This chapter for the Research Handbook on Executive Pay, a forthcoming book on international executive compensation to be published by Edgar Elgar Publishing, explores a range of responses to the global financial crisis concerning the regulation of executive pay in three common law jurisdictions - the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 45

Keywords: executive compensation, remuneration, shareholders, directors, disclosure, directors’ duties, comparative corporate governance, corporate scandals, global financial crisis, regulation

JEL Classification: G30, G34, J33, K22, K33, K40, M14, M52, 016

Accepted Paper Series