This study examines determinants of the CEO compensation using a sample of 1044 firm-year observations from six emerging markets covering the period from 2015-2018. The study has employed a backword regression analysis to examine the effect of some governance structure variables and firm attributes on the total cash of CEO compensation. The findings of the study show that governance structure variables such as, blockholder ownership and CEO duality have a significant effect on total cash of CEO compensation while, board size and board independence are insignificant factors. Companies with blockholder ownership pay more CEO compensation suggesting that blockholder ownership is not a good governance mechanism to monitor corporate boards’ decisions. Furthermore, companies with CEO duality tend to pay more compensation. This result suggests that the presence of the CEO in corporate boards reduces the efficiency of the board in monitoring managerial decisions such as CEO compensation which agrees with the agency view. Finally, firm performance and firm size are influential factors in determining the CEO compensation. The results report that board independence and board size variables as governance mechanisms are not effective in monitoring CEO compensation. Shareholders should avoid CEO duality in their business to pay less CEO compensation. The study contributes to the limited studies on determinants of the CEO compensation in emerging markets |
