How Does The Public View Executive Comp?

How many people have strong opinions about most hot topics in corporate governance— staggered boards, proxy advisory firms or dual-class share structure? In Pay for Performance... But Not Too Much Pay: The American Public's View of CEO Pay, from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, the authors take a look at a corporate governance subject on which everyone seems to have an opinion—CEO pay—and the public's perceptions about it. While academics may be arguing about labor market efficiency, much of the public takes a more intuitive or pragmatic approach: "the issue of CEO pay boils down to a personal assessment of whether any executive deserves to be paid so much money." The authors' conclusion from the survey: "the disconnect between observed pay levels and the public's view of pay is stark." Overall, the survey results were quite fascinating.