The recent financial crisis has created a public outcry over top-executive pay packages and has led to calls for reform of executive pay in Europe and the US. The current controversy is not the first - nor will it be the last - time that executive compensation has sparked outrage and led to regulation on both sides of the Atlantic. This volume compares US and European CEOs to trace the evolution of executive compensation, its controversies and its resulting regulations. It shows that many features of current executive compensation practices reflect the, often-unintended, consequences of regulatory responses to perceived abuses in top-executive pay, which frequently stem from relatively isolated events or situations. Regulation creates unintended (and usually costly) side effects and it is often driven by political agendas rather than shareholder value. Improvements in executive compensation are more likely to come from stronger corporate governance, and not through direct
government intervention.

The volume also examines the effects of incentive schemes and the patterns of performance related pay both within and across countries. It documents a number of empirical regularities and discusses whether government should intervene to support the implementation of incentive pay schemes. It argues that it makes little sense to undertake reform without detailed simulations of the effect on the economy under alternative economic scenarios, based on sound analysis and extensive discussion with labour, management, and government decision-makers.

About the Author:
Tito Boeri is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University, Milan and Scientific Director of the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti (www.frdb.org). His papers have been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Economic Journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association, Economic Policy, the European Economic Review, the Journal of Labour Economics, the Journal of Development Economics and the NBER Macroeconomics Annual. He has published 11 books with Oxford University Press, MIT Press, and Princeton University Press. He is the founder of the economic policy watchdog website www.lavoce.info and the scientific director of the Festival of Economics in Trento.

Claudio Lucifora is Professor of Economics at the Universita Cattolica in Milan and research fellow at IZA. He has been visiting scholar at the University of Warwick, Universite de Paris 2, London School of Economics, Universitat Autonoma Barcelona, Australian National University, and University of New South Wales. He has been elected member of the executive committee and Treasurer of EALE (European Association of Labour Economists). He has published books on low pay employment, the economics of education, and the shadow economy, as well as articles in refereed journals on earnings mobility, wage determination, unemployment, labour market institutions, education, and health.

Kevin J. Murphy is the Kenneth L. Trefftzs Chair in Finance at the USC Marshall School of Business, Professor of Business and Law in the USC Law School, and Professor of Economics in the USC Economics Department. He is an internationally known expert on executive compensation, and is the author of nearly 50 articles, cases, books, or book chapters relating to compensation and incentives in organizations. He has have offered testimony relating to executive compensation to the US Congress and has given speeches on compensation and incentives to the Conference Board, the American Compensation Association, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Professor Murphy received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Chicago.