Abstract
This study investigates the association between CEO remuneration and firms' state of financial distress and whether that relationship varies systematically across firms' life cycle stages. Using a sample of 6508 firm-year observations over the 2004–2021 period, we find that a firm's state of financial distress is negatively related to CEO remuneration. We also find that this relationship holds in the mature and old stages of a firm life cycle, but not in the young phase. Our findings are consistent with the predictions of resource-based and efficient contracting theories, and are robust to endogeneity tests. Overall, our results show that CEO remuneration is a significant determinant of corporate financial distress.
•This study investigates the association between CEO remuneration and firms' state of financial distress and whether that relationship varies systematically across firms' life cycle stages.•We find that a firm's state of financial distress is negatively related to CEO remuneration.•This relationship holds in the mature and old stages of a firm life cycle, but not in the young phase.•Our findings are consistent with the predictions of resource-based theory, robust to endogeneity tests and alternative measures of CEO compensation.•Our results show that CEO remuneration is a significant determinant of corporate financial distress.