Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

University vice-chancellor pay, performance and (asymmetric) benchmarking

Gschwandtner, Adelina and McManus, Richard (2018) University vice-chancellor pay, performance and (asymmetric) benchmarking. Discussion paper. Adelina Gschwandtner (KAR id:71749)

Abstract

We study the pay of UK universities chief executives (‘vice-chancellors’) over a ten year period. Although there is a correlation between pay and performance, exploratory analysis doesn’t ?nd statistically signi?cant evidence that a change in performance leads to a change in pay, or vice-versa, which motivates us to look at other explanations. Instead, we ?nd strong support for an asymmetric or aspirational benchmarking to average behaviour, where those institutions with below average pay increase their vice-chancellor’s salaries quicker than those with above average pay, independent of performance. We simulate a model whereby di?erent institutions target di?erent places of the distribution of salaries and demonstrate that in?ation of pay can be explained by this behaviour.

Item Type: Reports and Papers (Discussion paper)
Additional information: School of Economics Discussion Paper 18/07
Uncontrolled keywords: Executive Compensation, Performance Pay, E?ciency Wages, Benchmarking
Subjects: T Technology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User: Adelina Gschwandtner
Date Deposited: 21 Jan 2019 12:47 UTC
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2022 05:45 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/71749 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Gschwandtner, Adelina.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6952-1782
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.