The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:59:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Are CEOs of U.S. Public Companies Really Overpaid? – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Are CEOs of U.S. Public Companies Really Overpaid? https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2007/01/09/are-ceos-of-us-public-companies-really-overpaid/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=are-ceos-of-us-public-companies-really-overpaid https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2007/01/09/are-ceos-of-us-public-companies-really-overpaid/#comments Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:51:04 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2007/01/09/are-ceos-of-us-public-companies-reall?d=20070109185104EST Editor’s Note: This post is by Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago

I was shocked (but encouraged) to read the New York Times yesterday. Instead of writing another article about how CEOs are massively overpaid, dishonest, or both, Andrew Sorkin and Eric Dash make a strong argument that U.S. CEOs are underpaid! According to the article, private equity firms are increasingly successful in luring talented public company executives to run private equity-funded firms. A big part of the reason is that private equity firms pay those executives more.

Consider what this exodus of talented public company executives to private equity-funded companies means. These executives can certainly get hired as CEOs of public companies. If they were so overpaid, they would not leave the public companies. The fact is that many of them are leaving to run private equity-funded companies.

(more…)

]]> https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2007/01/09/are-ceos-of-us-public-companies-really-overpaid/feed/ 5