Publicly traded firms in the U.S. typically determine C.E.O. compensation by benchmarking the pay of their C.E.O.s against the pay of C.E.O.s in “peer” firms. The naming of particular peer companies by individual firms constitutes a supra-firm relational structure (network) in which an...

The disclosure of compensation peer groups is argued to provide shareholders with valuable information that can be used to scrutinize CEO compensation. However, research suggests that there are substantial incentives for executives and directors to bias the compensation peer group such that the...

We study the selection of peers into compensation peer groups reported by U.S. corporations. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation requires firms to report these peer groups which are used by investors and shareholders to benchmark the compensation of CEOs. Building on a novel,...