On the decision to reprice stock options: almost never

摘要

Executive compensation has been the subject of animated debate for years. Critics remind us that in 1980, CEOs' compensation was 40 times that of the average worker; by 1990, that factor had increased to 80 times; more recently, the estimates range from 250-500 times that of the average worker. Not only has the amount of pay changed substantially, but so has its composition. Today, more than half of CEOs' pay is composed of stock options, a form of payment relied on by virtually all publicly-traded companies in the USA.