, Columnist
CEO Pay Rewards What Was Going to Happen Anyway
Shares rise -- and fall -- almost regardless of the actions of top executives.
Maybe cash was better than executive stock awards.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesCompensation in all its excesses for top corporate executives is a hardy perennial for astonishment, outrage and fruitless demands for reform. I have said more than once that many, indeed, most, chief executive officers at publicly traded U.S. companies are wildly overpaid. But some recent research adds some nuance that deserves a closer look.
First, a quick reminder: For more than four decades U.S. executives have received much bigger pay increases than their brethren in Europe and Japan. Today, top German executives make about half of what their U.S. counterparts are paid; Japanese CEOs get paid about 10 percent of comparable American CEOs.