The usefulness of the CEO-to-employee pay ratio disclosure to investors is subject to significant debate. Our experiment examines participant responses to higher-than-industry and comparable-to-industry pay ratio disclosures in a company. A prior experiment by Kelly and Seow (2016) (hereafter KS) found that incrementally disclosing a higher-than-industry pay ratio on top of higher-than-industry CEO pay had indirect negative effects on the company’s perceived investment potential, via negative perceptions about the fairness of the CEO pay and workplace climate. We find that the negative indirect effects of pay ratio disclosures on perceived investment potential in KS are replicable in our study, and for a less extreme comparable-to-industry pay ratio. We do not find evidence that the effects of incremental pay ratio disclosure on investor perceptions are stronger when the pay ratio is higher-than-industry than when it is comparable-to-industry. Our study suggests that the ability of pay ratio disclosures to impact investor perceptions extends across a range of pay ratios.

首席执行官与员工的薪酬比率披露对投资者的有用性尚需进行大量辩论。我们的实验检查了参与者对公司中高于行业和与行业可比的薪酬比率披露的反应。Kelly and Seow（2016）（以下称KS）的先前实验发现，以高于行业首席执行官的薪资水平逐步披露高于行业薪酬的比率，会通过负面看法间接影响公司的潜在投资潜力首席执行官薪酬的公平性和工作环境。我们发现，薪酬比率披露对堪萨斯州感知投资潜力的负面间接影响在我们的研究中是可复制的，并且与行业的可比薪酬比率相比则不太极端。我们没有证据表明，当薪资比高于行业时，披露的加薪率披露对投资者看法的影响要强于与行业相当的情况。我们的研究表明，薪酬比率披露影响投资者看法的能力跨越了一系列薪酬比率。