<p>The thesis handles the principal-agency problem between shareholders and the Chief Executive Officer. The purpose of the thesis was to examine the link between CEO compensation and corporate performance measured as a change in Market to Book ratio. Data was collected from corporate annual reports between the years 2000 – 2008 and the study covers 39 Swedish companies from the Stockholm Stock Exchange Large Cap list. To examine whether there is a link between the CEO´s compensation and firm performance, we performed a regression analysis, and no significant relation is found. We found a significant positive correlation in the relationship between shareholder return and CEO compensation; we also found a significant positive correlation in the relationship between corporate value and CEO compensation. The thesis also considered other explanatory variables to examine what may affect CEO compensation and the study investigated these by performing regressions analysis. We observed that firm characteristics such as the number of board members and the CEO ownership effect the CEO compensation.</p>

The thesis handles the principal-agency problem between shareholders and the Chief Executive Officer. The purpose of the thesis was to examine the link between CEO compensation and corporate performance measured as a change in Market to Book ratio. Data was collected from corporate annual reports between the years 2000 – 2008 and the study covers 39 Swedish companies from the Stockholm Stock Exchange Large Cap list. To examine whether there is a link between the CEO´s compensation and firm performance, we performed a regression analysis, and no significant relation is found. We found a significant positive correlation in the relationship between shareholder return and CEO compensation; we also found a significant positive correlation in the relationship between corporate value and CEO compensation. The thesis also considered other explanatory variables to examine what may affect CEO compensation and the study investigated these by performing regressions analysis. We observed that firm characteristics such as the number of board members and the CEO ownership effect the CEO compensation.