At least, share with the CFO and COO
A new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper addresses the inequality issues raised by executive pay, but not through the usual lens of CEO versus average worker. Rather, authors Lucian A. Bebchuk, Martijn Cremers and Urs Peyer look at the CEO’s pay compared with what a company’s other top officers make.
Their conclusion: The more the CEO hogs all the top-officer goodies, the worse the firm does in terms of profits and creating value. The most CEO-centric companies also have “lower quality of acquisition decisions, lower CEO turnover (and) more luck-based pay.” (Luck-based pay refers to options grants that turn out to be issued at or close to a low point in the stock price.)
The lesson is a twist on what we all learned in kindergarten: share and share alike, even if you’re only sharing with the people in slightly smaller offices on the executive floor.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
