Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The main aims of the project were to:

• examine the nature of corporate governance innovations that have occurred in UK companies since the publication of the Cadbury and Greenbury reports
• test the company performance consequences of adopting particular governance systems, reward structures and incentive mechanisms
• examine in detail the reward systems of senior managers and test the link between compensation and performance using competing theories of executive pay (e.g. tournament theory).

Main Topics:

File 1: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation data (file ceo-compensation-data). This file contains detailed compensation data for 510 CEOs at the 510 largest UK companies for the fiscal year 1997-1998. The data includes each element of compensation, as well as information on stock options and equity (including restricted or conditional) holdings. Users should note that the following variables have been removed from the data for copyright reasons: MV, Employees, Total_CE, Sales, Sales_Q and Int_Rate. They may still be referenced in the documentation.

File 2: Tournaments data (file tournaments-data). This file contains detailed compensation data for all the named directors (over 1000) at 100 of the UK's largest companies for the fiscal year 1997-1998. The following variables have been removed from the data for copyright reasons: Int_Rate, ROCE and Total_CE. They may still be referenced in the documentation.

The data for both files are mostly compiled from publicly-available annual reports, and include each element of compensation, as well as information on stock options and equity (including restricted or conditional) holdings. Data are also augmented with additional firm level variables such as size and industry as well as the variables necessary to price executive options using the Black-Scholes formula.