We found evidence of agency problems caused by the separation of ownership and
control. Lack of control by ownership enables management to extract higher executive
compensation, thereby confirming a study by Elston and Goldberg (2003) that used an older
German dataset of the period 1970 to 1986. We also find that the identity of owners has a
significant influence on the level of executive compensation. Whereas bank ownership
substantially reduces the level of pay, family ownership has a significantly positive impact.
Analyzing divergences between direct and ultimate ownership we find that the strong
link running from profitability to compensation is absent in firms where ultimate owners
increase their voting rights in excess of their cash flow rights. The estimated pay-forperformance sensitivities are consistent with the view that concentrated owners have better
opportunities for supervision and that they reduce even the tiny coefficients obtained for other
firms.