The impact of CEO characteristics on CEO remuneration: Evidence from the Netherlands

This study investigated the impact of the CEO characteristics gender, age, and tenure, on several remuneration categories a CEO can receive. Ordinary least squared (OLS) regression was used to test the impact for 63 non-financial Dutch listed firms during the years 2015 to 2017. Results show that the age of the CEO is positive related to annual bonus and option grants. Indicating that a CEO does want to get paid more in the form of variable pay when they are getting older. A CEO that is longer at the firm than their counterpart benefits from this tenure by receiving a higher fixed salary. According to previous studies, this is due to a CEO with higher tenure being able to influence the supervisory board or remuneration committee who sets his/her remuneration and call for more base salary (fixed and thus the same amount every month and less volatile). Furthermore, additional insight is shed regarding the use of a remuneration committee within the supervisory board. Both, the presence of a remuneration committee and the appointment of a former CEO at the remuneration committee do influence CEO remuneration.