The Advisors' Blog

– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com

Last year, I blogged about Professor Charles Elson’s study on peer group benchmarking. In the wake of the SEC’s pay ratio proposal, the importance of that study grows. This recent blog by Karen Kane takes notes about a recent meeting with Prof. Elson and his co-author Craig Ferrere & others with a group of independent directors. Here is one outgrowth of that meeting:

One suggestion is to look at the executives other than the CEO, whose pay is benchmarked as well and see how that has affected levels and ratios. Elson and Ferrere said they would like make it a follow-up to their current study.

And here’s a video of a debate over the study – and here’s a blog from The Conference Board with key take-aways. And here are some other reactions to the study:

– Tower Watson’s “Peer Group Benchmarking and Excessive CEO Pay – Is the Answer That Simple?”

– Time’s “Executive Pay: Is “I’ll Have What He’s Having” Really the Best Approach?”

Here’s an unrelated interesting article from Forbes entitled “Will You Be More Productive If You Know How Your Pay Compares With Your Colleagues’?“