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It’s pretty clear by now that many CEOs of public companies make more money than their performance warrants, and that boards of directors often ignore shareholders who complain about it. But how much does paying the chief executive officer more than he (or, rarely, she) is worth really cost stockholders?
現如今，相當明確的一點是，很多上市公司的CEO實際賺的錢比他們業績確保他們可以賺的錢要多，而且，董事會常常忽視那些對此不滿的股東。但給CEO支付比他（她，很少見）實際值得的薪酬高到底會對股東造成多大的損失？
Plenty, says a new study that examined CEO pay, stock price performance, and return on assets in a database of the 1,500 largest U.S. public companies for each year from 1994 to 2013. The 10 highest-paid CEOs in any given year presided over an average $1.4 billion loss in market capitalization, compared to their more modestly compensated peers.
一份新的研究對這個問題的回答是：損失慘重。這份研究逐年核查了從1994年至2013年間1,500家美國最大上市公司的CEO薪酬、股價表現和資產回報。其中的任何一年，相對于薪酬適中的同行，薪酬最高的10位CEO掌管的企業市值平均損失了14億美元。
There’s more: Even if a given CEO made the top 10 for only one year, the stock lost value for three years afterward, compared to the shares of other companies in the same industry. And, if a company with a CEO in the top 10 made an acquisition or underwent a merger, “the market reacted more negatively,” pushing the share price down farther than for comparable deals made by lower paid CEOs, says Mike Cooper, a finance professor at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah and a co-author of the study.
此外，即使其中某位特定的CEO的薪酬只有某一年入圍過前10，隨后的三年，這位CEO所在公司的股票價值都會相對同行業的其他公司股票出現下跌。而且，這份報告的聯合執筆者、猶他大學（University of Utah）金融教授邁克o庫伯還說，10位薪酬最高的CEO掌管的公司如果進行收購或合并，“市場反應更為負面”；相對于薪酬較低CEO的公司，股價下降幅度更大。
“We’re not saying that high CEO pay is necessarily bad,” he adds. “But we did find a clear link between high CEO pay and decreased financial performance.”
“我們并不是在說，CEO高薪必定是糟糕的事情，”他補充說?！暗覀兊拇_發現，CEO高薪與公司財務表現下降之間存在明確的關聯。”
The main reason, Cooper says, is that extravagant pay gives rise to what the study calls “overconfidence,” or the belief that “you have better information and know more than everybody else,” which leads to a penchant for risk—making too many acquisitions, over-investing in dicey projects that usually fail, and generally spending too much of the company’s money.
庫伯稱，主要的問題是，如此奢侈的薪酬引發了這位研究所稱的“自負”，或者“自認為掌握了更好的信息，比其他任何人懂得都多”這種信念，結果導致了對風險的癖好。具體表現為：大肆收購、過度投資通常會失敗的風險項目，而且通常也會過多支出公司的資金。
“This is why the highest paid CEOs in any industry tend to do things that destroy shareholder wealth,” Cooper notes. A telltale sign of overconfidence, according to the study: chief executives with costly delusions of grandeur often hold “a larger number of in-the-money stock options that they haven’t exercised than other CEOs,” he says.
庫伯指出，“為什么任何行業中最高薪的CEO們傾向于做出損害股東財富的事情？這就是原因?！睋@份研究稱，有一個跡象很能說明問題，反映CEO的過度自信：被壯麗前景假象所迷惑的CEO通常比其他CEO持有更多“尚未執行的大量低價期權,”
They’ve often been in the top job longer than their lower-paid peers, too. Cooper and his colleagues found the highest pay and the most overconfident behavior among chief executives who had been in office for an average of six years. “That’s not surprising,” Cooper notes. “The longer tenure means a CEO has had more of a chance to make friends with the board, or to put friends on it.”
而且，他們在任的時間也比薪酬低一些的同行要長。庫伯和他的同事發現，獲得最高薪酬和做出最自負行為的CEO平均任職期為6年?！斑@一點沒什么可奇怪的，”庫伯指出?！案L的任職時間意味著CEO可以有機會與董事會結交朋友，或者把朋友安插進董事會?！?/div>
Chief executives in the study who had held the post the longest and made the most money also showed more lackluster financial results than their peers at other companies, at least by one measure: return on assets over the course of their tenure underperformed their industries’ ROA by 12%.
這項研究中任職時間最長、賺錢最多的CEO們比同行們創造的財務業績更為遜色，至少從一項指標表明如此：他們任職期間的資產回報率比所在行業的資產回報率低了12%。
Although Cooper is careful to say that the study isn’t prescriptive, the research does suggest that setting term limits for CEOs would help to curb both out-of-control pay and expensive, overconfident moves. Shareholders might suffer less long-term damage to their investment if no one who’s paid more than 90% of his or her industry peers could hold the top job for longer than, say, three years. Right now, that doesn’t seem to be happening: The average time in office of Fortune 500 CEOs in 2013 climbed to 9.7 years, nonprofit research firm The Conference Board reported in April. That was the longest average tenure reported since 2002.
盡管庫伯很謹慎地表示，這項研究的目的并不是要開出方子, 但它的確表明，設定CEO任期可以幫助降低失控的薪酬和代價高昂的自負行為。如果薪酬較同行高90%的CEO任期不超過（比方說）3年，股東的投資蒙受長期損失的可能性也更小。不過，眼下正在發生的情形似乎并不是這樣：非盈利研究機構世界大型企業聯合會（The Conference Board）今年4月份發布的一份報告稱，2013年《財富》美國500強CEO的平均在職時間已經攀升到了9.7年。這是自2002年以來發布的最長平均任期。
