Weekend Healthcare Pulse: Is Japan the land of cheap executives? Not a sign of frugality and some undesirable consequence perhaps

Research evidence excerpt

Weekend Healthcare Pulse: Is Japan the land of cheap executives? Not a sign of frugality and some undesirable consequence perhaps

31 July 2026

Weekend Healthcare Pulse: Is Japan the land of cheap

executives? Not a sign of frugality and some undesirable

consequence perhaps

Miki Sogi, Ph.D. +81 3 6777 6991 miki.sogi@bernsteinsg.com

Courtney Breen +1 917 344 8407 courtney.breen@bernsteinsg.com

Eve Burstein +1 917 344 8313 eve.burstein@bernsteinsg.com

Lee Hambright +1 917 344 8429 lee.hambright@bernsteinsg.com

Rebecca Liang, Ph.D. +852 2123 2656 rebecca.liang@bernsteinsg.com

Delphine Le Louet +33 1 42 13 92 93 delphine.le-louet@bernsteinsg.com

Susannah Ludwig +41 582 723 127 susannah.ludwig@bernsteinsg.com

Justin Smith +44 20 7762 5899 justin.smith@bernsteinsg.com

Lance Wilkes +1 917 344 8501 lance.wilkes@bernsteinsg.com

Jeffrey Walch, MD, Ph.D. +1 917 344 8613 jeffrey.walch@bernsteinsg.com

EXHIBIT 1: Japanese CEO are paid substantially less than their

SIGNIFICANT COMPENSATION GAP EXISTS BETWEEN US/EU peers

JAPANESE EXECUTIVES AND THEIR US & EU PEERS.

THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES Median CEO compensation (2023)

An investor arriving from the US, where the debate over CEO 2500

overpay rarely quiets down, cannot help but notice the opposite

phenomenon in Japan: executives there are paid strikingly little

relative to their global peers. A recent survey shows Japanese CEOs 2000

earn just a fraction of what their US and European counterparts

take home, with the gap running 3-7x (Exhibit 1). Company size and

profitability explain part of this, since US firms tend to be larger and 1500

more profitable in dollar terms. Yet, the scale alone falls well short Mn

of accounting for a gap this wide. Pharma makes the puzzle even

more striking.