Compensation consultants and conflicts of interest

An analysis published this week in The Guardian  found of the “50 most valuable UK public companies, 33 hired pay consultants who also sold services to other parts of the same company during 2011. The list includes businesses that attracted some of the greatest attention during the shareholder spring, in which investors began rebelling against pay awards.” Both the consultants and companies involved denied any conflicts but, as the paper reported: “the High Pay Commission was ‘concerned at the extent to which remuneration consultants are encouraging the ratcheting up of executive pay. In particular we are concerned that remuneration consultants have a direct conflict of interest where they provide executive pay advice and cross-selling for other business.’ [The Commission] added: ‘While the voluntary code for remuneration consultants specifies that they should not cross-sell services, anecdotal evidence and interviewees the High Pay Commission met during this research suggest this practice is widespread.’ ”

But is there truly harm in these sorts of COIs? The research in this paper  –  Compensation Consultant Independence and CEO Pay – published last year suggests that  there is. As described by the authors: “Using a unique data set of compensation consultant service fee in U.S. S& P 500 firms in 2009, we find strong evidence that compensation consultant’s conflicts of interest is associated with higher CEO pay…evidence shows that that CEO receives 7% more salary, 22.9% more bonus and 15.6% more total compensation in firms where compensation consultants provide other services than that of firms where the consultants do not provide other service. In addition, we also document that CEO’s pay-for-performance-sensitivity (PPS) is lower in firms where the consultants have potential conflicts of interest.”