Proving CEOs Overpaid for Luck Helped Bertrand Stir Pay Backlash

Marianne Bertrand helped unleash a shareholder backlash against CEO pay with research she began while still in graduate school.

In a 2001 paper based on her work as a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, the 43-year-old labor economist documented that chief executive officers at U.S. oil companies got raises when their company’s fortunes improved because of changes in global oil prices beyond their control. The same pay-for-luck phenomenon occurred with multinational businesses when currency fluctuations, rather than management strategies, boosted results, she found.