Executive Pay

Executive pay (also executive compensation), is financial compensation received by an officer of a firm. It is typically a mixture of salary, bonuses, shares of and/or call options on the company stock, benefits, and perquisites, ideally configured to take into account government regulations, tax law, the desires of the organization and the executive, and rewards for performance. Over the past three decades, executive pay has risen dramatically relative to that of an average worker's wage in the United States, and to a lesser extent in some other countries. Observers differ as to whether this rise is a natural and beneficial result of competition for scarce business talent that can add greatly to stockholder value in large companies, or a socially harmful phenomenon brought about by social and political changes that have given executives greater control over their own pay. Executive pay is an important part of corporate governance, and is often determined by a company's board of directors.