The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of America’s highest-earning 1% have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy. It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U. S. economy.
理解首席执行官薪酬增长的最佳模式是，在一个顶级企业的商业机会迅速增长的世界里，有限的首席执行官人才是如何增长的。美国收入最高的1%的人的努力是全球经济中更具活力的因素之一。这并不流行，但他们的薪酬上涨如此之快的一个原因是，相对于美国经济中的许多其他员工，首席执行官们确实提高了他们的游戏水平。
It is true that CEO pay has gone up — top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500% The typical CEO of a top American corporation now makes about $18.9 million a year.
诚然，首席执行官的薪酬一直在上涨——最高可能是普通员工平均薪酬的300倍，而且自20世纪70年代中期以来，美国大型上市公司的首席执行官薪酬已经上涨了约500%，一家美国顶级公司的典型CEO现在的年薪约为1890万美元。
Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many mere skills than simply being able to “run the company” CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slip up can be significant. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly mind-boggling plus, virtually all major American companies are beyond this major CEOs still have to do all the day-to-day work they have always done.
今天的首席执行官，至少对美国的大公司来说，除了能够“管理公司”之外，还必须具备许多技能。首席执行官必须对金融市场有很好的了解，甚至可能对公司应该如何在这些市场上进行交易。他们还需要比他们的前任有更好的公关技巧，因为即使是一个小小的失误，代价也可能是巨大的。还有一个事实是，美国大公司比以往任何时候都更加全球化，供应链遍布更多国家。要想在这一体系中发挥领导作用，需要具备相当令人难以置信的知识，而且，几乎所有的美国大公司都超出了这一范围，主要的首席执行官们仍然要做他们一直以来做的所有日常工作。
The common idea that high CEO pay is mainly about ripping people off doesn’t explain history very well. By most measures, corporate governance has become a lot tighter and more rigorous since the 1970s. Yet it is principally during this period of stronger governance that CEO pay has been high and rising. That suggests it is in the broader corporate interest to recruit top candidates for increasingly tough jobs.
通常认为，CEO的高薪主要是为了压榨员工，但这并不能很好地解释历史问题。从大多数衡量标准来看，自20世纪70年代以来，公司治理已经变得更加严格，但首席执行官的薪酬主要是在这一治理更为严格的时期出现的。这表明，为越来越艰难的工作招聘顶尖人选符合企业更广泛的利益。
Furthermore, the highest CEO salaries are paid to outside candidates, not to the cozy insider picks, another sign that high CEO pay is not some kind of depredation at the expense of the rest of the company. And the stock market reacts positively when companies tie CEO pay to, say, stock prices, a sign that those practices build up corporate value not just for the CEO.
此外，最高的薪水是付给外部空降的首席执行官，而不是给那些安逸的内部人选，这又一个迹象表明，CEO的高薪并不是以牺牲公司其他人为代价的某种形式的掠夺。当公司将首席执行官的薪酬与股票价格挂钩时，股票市场的反应是积极的，这表明这些做法不仅为首席执行官创造了企业价值。
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