Pay ratio disclosure and the pay of everyone else
Executive compensation appears on 114 recent papers, yet only 14 of 144 pay papers carry a disclosure, pay-ratio, say-on-pay or transparency keyword. Firms in the US and UK now publish the ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay. Did it change CEO pay, worker pay or neither?
What prompted this
Since October 2025, 144 papers carry an executive-compensation, CEO-compensation or executive-pay keyword (73 in finance journals, 30 in accounting, 22 in management); "executive compensation" appears on 114 and "CEO compensation" on 33. Only 14 of the 144 also carry a pay-ratio, disclosure, say-on-pay or transparency keyword, and "executive compensation disclosure" on 2.
Questions
- After pay ratio disclosure began, did firms with the highest ratios slow CEO pay growth, raise median worker pay, or outsource their lowest-paid jobs?
- Do investors vote against pay packages more often at high-ratio firms, and do customers or job applicants react?
- Do firms manage the ratio itself, for example by changing which employees count?
Data that could help
Pay ratio disclosures from proxy statements, ExecuComp, say-on-pay vote results and workforce data from annual reports.
Next step
Collect pay ratios for S&P 1500 firms for 2018–2025 and test whether a firm's ratio in one year predicts changes in median worker pay in the next.