NONPROFIT EXECUTIVE PAY AS AN AGENCY PROBLEM: EVIDENCE FROM US COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Managers' pay, and the way it is determined, can have an important impact on the success of firms, and even of whole economies. While there is a rich literature exploring these issues in the for-profit sector, managerial pay at nonprofit firms has received little attention. Yet nonprofit organizations suffer from agency problems that are similar to, or perhaps even more severe than, those observed at for-profit companies. Accordingly, this Article explores the implications for nonprofit governance of a world in which "managerial power" can affect nonprofit pay setting. This Article develops the theory and provides support in the form of original empirical evidence based on data from a large panel of colleges and universities collected across a ten-year period. Our findings support the hypothesis that donors with less leverage suffer from significant agency costs in setting president pay. For example, we find for the first time evidence of an otherwise counterintuitive negative association between the fraction of university revenue provided by current donations and president compensation, which we suggest shows that schools that are less dependent on donors are freer to set high pay. We discuss the implications of these findings for the regulation of nonprofits and for a broader understanding of the pay-setting process at for-profit as well as nonprofit organizations.