首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
In 1965, America’s big companies had a hell of a year. The stock market was booming. Sales were rising briskly, profit margins w
In 1965, America’s big companies had a hell of a year. The stock market was booming. Sales were rising briskly, profit margins w
admin
2015-01-10
112
问题
In 1965, America’s big companies had a hell of a year. The stock market was booming. Sales were rising briskly, profit margins were fat, and corporate profits as a percentage of GDP were at an all-time high. Almost half a century later, some things look much the same: big American companies have had a hell of a year, with the stock market soaring, margins strong, and profits hitting a new all-time high. But there’s one very noticeable difference. In 1965, CEOs at big companies earned on average about 20 times as much as their typical employee. These days, CEOs earn about 270 times as much.
That huge gap between the top and the middle is the result of a boom in executive compensation, which rose 876 per cent between 1978 and 2011. In response, we’ve had a host of regulatory reforms designed to curb executive pay. The latest of these is a rule, unveiled by the SEC last month, requiring companies to disclose the ratio of the CEO’s pay to that of the median worker. The idea is that, once the disparity is made public, companies will be less likely to award outsized pay packages.
Faith in disclosure has been crucial to the regulation of executive pay since the 1930s. More recently, rules have made companies detail the size and the structure of compensation packages and have enforced transparency about the kinds of comparisons they rely on to determine salaries. The result is that shareholders today know far more about CEO compensation than ever before. There’s only one problem: even as companies are disclosing more and more, executive pay keeps going up and up.
This isn’ t a coincidence: the drive for transparency has actually helped fuel the spiralling salaries. For one thing, it gives executives a good idea of how much they can get away with asking for. A more crucial reason, though, has to do with the way boards of directors set salaries. As Charles Elson and Craig Ferrere write, boards at most companies use what’ s called " peer benchmarking. " They look at the CEO salaries at peer-group firms, and then peg their CEO’s pay to the 50th, 75th, or 90th percentile of the peer group—never lower. This leads to the so-called Lake Wobegon effect: every CEO gets treated as above average. "Relying on peer-group comparisons, the way boards do, mathematically guarantees that pay is going to go up," Elson told me.
On top of this, peer-group comparisons aren’ t always honest: boards can be too cozy with CEOs and may tweak the comparisons to justify overpaying. A recent study shows that boards tend to include as peers companies that are bigger than they are and that pay CEOs more. The system is skewed by so-called "leapfroggers," the few CEOs in a given year who, whether by innate brilliance or by dumb luck, end up earning astronomical salaries. Those big paydays reset the baseline expectations for everyone else.
This isn’t just an American problem. Nor is it primarily a case of boards being helplessly in thrall to a company’ s executives. Boards are far more independent of management than they used to be, and it’s notable that a CEO hired from outside a company—typically gets 20 to 25 per cent more than an inside candidate. The real issues are subtler, though no less insidious. Some boards remain convinced of what Elson calls "superstar theory": they think that CEOs can work their magic anywhere, and must be overpaid to stay. In addition, Elson said, "if you pay below average, it makes it look as if you’d hired a below-average CEO, and what board wants that?"
Transparent pricing has perverse effects in other fields. In a host of recent cases, public disclosure of the prices that hospitals charge for various procedures has ended up driving prices up rather than down. And the psychological causes in both situations seem similar. We tend to be uneasy about bargaining in situations where the stakes are very high: do you want the guy doing your neurosurgery, or running your company, to be offering discounts? Better, in the event that something goes wrong, to be able to tell yourself that you spent all you could. And overspending is always easier when you’ re spending someone else’ s money. Corporate board members are disbursing shareholder funds; most patients have insurance to foot the bill.
Sunlight is supposed to be the best disinfectant. But there’ s something naive about the new SEC rule, which presumes that full disclosure will embarrass companies enough to restrain executive pay. As Elson told me, "People who can ask to be paid a hundred million dollars are beyond embarrassment. " More important, as long as the system for setting pay is broken, more disclosure makes things worse instead of better. We don’t need more information. We need boards of directors to step up and set pay themselves, instead of outsourcing the job to their peers. The rest of us don’ t get to live in Lake Wobegon. CEOs shouldn’t, either.
The author makes a comparison between today’s America with that of 1965______.
选项
A、to show the connection between the growth of stock market and profit margins
B、to demonstrate the development of American companies
C、to expose the increasing profit margins of businesses
D、to display the widening gap in income between the CEOs and average employees
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/rxSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Dumpsewageintooceansandriversisaseriousformofpollution.
TheirEnglishwasbrokenandfullofobscenities.
Theresearchteamcanhandle________needstobehandled.
Expressionismisanartisticstyleinwhichtheartistseekstodepictnotobjectiverealitybutratherthesubjectiveemotions
Thesurvivorspouredinandinandpackedtheirbodiessotighttosleeponthebarefloorsthattheirbreathalonewarmedthea
Asthenewepidemicspreadthroughoutthecountry,thegovernmentistryingto________thediseasewithinthatregion.
北京奥运会不仅将展示新的激动人心的中国文化,也将体现北京独特的个性与技巧。北京也认为,应从奥林匹克运动中通过广泛咨询,得到技术上的建议。在准备这份报告时,我们咨询了来自悉尼、亚特兰大、巴塞罗那的专家。协商和对话是我们工作的原则。//再次申办以来,
JohnCiardigothismaster’sdegreefromtheUniversityofMichiganin1939andhaspublishedmorethan40poems.
A、Thelibraryshoulddeveloptowardsthemulti-operationstrend.B、Thegovernmentwilldecreaseitscapitalinputinthelibrary
A、Aformaltalkbetweenthebossandhissecretary.B、Aninformaltalkbetweentwofriends.C、Aformaltalkbetweenaprofessor
随机试题
A.利福平B.维生素B2C.艾司唑仑D.硫酸亚铁E.氯苯那敏服用后泪液、尿液可呈橙红色的药物是
Zielke手术治疗特发性脊柱侧凸的最大优点是
下列哪项不是黄精的炮制作用( )。
会计是以货币为主要计量单位,以凭证为依据,借助于专门的技术方法,对一定主体的经济活动进行全面、系统、连续、综合的核算和监督,并向有关方面提供相关信息的经济管理活动。()
基金产品设计的法律要求之一是不与拟任基金管理人已管理的基金雷同。( )
甲对乙的债务清偿期已届满却未履行,乙欲就甲对他人享有的债权提起代位权诉讼。根据合同法律制度的规定,甲享有的下列债权中,乙可代位行使的是()。
中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度,是我国的一项基本政治制度。我国现有()个民主党派。
2亿年前,在恐龙统治地球之时,一小撮夜行性的远古爬行动物在不知不觉中找到了一条生存策略,并最终走向了大脑的进化之路。科学家从与原始哺乳动物极其类似的远古爬行动物的头骨化石中得出结论,正是嗅觉的发展促进了远古爬行动物大脑的进化。以下哪项如果为真,最
(1993年)设某产品的成本函数为C=aq2+bq+c,需求函数为.其中C为成本,q为需求量(即产量),P为单价,a,b,c,d,e都是正的常数,且d>b.求:1)利润最大时的产量及最大利润;2)需求对价格的弹性;3)需求对价格弹性
HowwereimmigrantsviewedbyU.S.Congressinearlydays?Accordingtotheauthor,theburningissueconcerningimmigrationis
最新回复
(
0
)