I agree. It's unfortunate that whenever you see media coverage of a study like this, the safe assumption is bad interpretation of the data, bad data, small sample sizes and the like. It could also be true. We're such apes.
You feel like you need to interrogate them to see what they're missing or hiding. Is this just a product of pay in certain industries?
The article mentions poorly performing banks. Bank CEO markets are competitive. There are a lot of them. They move and they have options in government, think task and such. Banks also happen to be on a bad run. Tech OTOH is doing well. We're on a founder-CEO trend and most of them are rich of founder stack, not salaries. Stock is more common as a compensation. You're more likely to find $1 salaries in tech companies.
Could the story really be more about industries, their compensation norms and recent performance? Could it be about founders vs hired guns? Could your (sounds plausible) reasoning be true, bad companies need to pay CEOs higher salaries. I'm not claiming it is, just pointing out how unfortunate it is that we can't say "Forbes, University of Utah. They must have eliminated those. Their conclusion must be a likely one.
"How could this be? In a word, overconfidence. CEOs who get paid huge amounts tend to think less critically about their decisions." - really?
On second though, your reasoning must be correct. Stock based compensation is much more attractive in a company/industry that's making gains. Warren Buffet or Larry Ellison can be compensated by owning stock, options or similar. If a stock is flat, those kinds of incentive packages are worth less so it needs to be made up in salary.
You feel like you need to interrogate them to see what they're missing or hiding. Is this just a product of pay in certain industries?
The article mentions poorly performing banks. Bank CEO markets are competitive. There are a lot of them. They move and they have options in government, think task and such. Banks also happen to be on a bad run. Tech OTOH is doing well. We're on a founder-CEO trend and most of them are rich of founder stack, not salaries. Stock is more common as a compensation. You're more likely to find $1 salaries in tech companies.
Could the story really be more about industries, their compensation norms and recent performance? Could it be about founders vs hired guns? Could your (sounds plausible) reasoning be true, bad companies need to pay CEOs higher salaries. I'm not claiming it is, just pointing out how unfortunate it is that we can't say "Forbes, University of Utah. They must have eliminated those. Their conclusion must be a likely one.
"How could this be? In a word, overconfidence. CEOs who get paid huge amounts tend to think less critically about their decisions." - really?
On second though, your reasoning must be correct. Stock based compensation is much more attractive in a company/industry that's making gains. Warren Buffet or Larry Ellison can be compensated by owning stock, options or similar. If a stock is flat, those kinds of incentive packages are worth less so it needs to be made up in salary.