Foreword
Over the past three decades, executive compensation — the salaries, bonuses, shares, stock options, severance pay, and other benefits that businesses provide their top management — has risen dramatically and, along with it, public outrage. In 1970, CEO compensation was 11 times the average hourly worker wage. In 2007, it averaged $10.5 billion annually, 344 times the pay of the typical American worker.The recent financial meltdown, and before that the Enron Corporation accounting scandal, have exposed flaws in how boards of directors determine CEO incentives and have made executive compensation a symbol of corporate corruption. Taxpayers, who subsidize executive compensation…
