遏制CEO薪酬暴涨的新主张
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上周，美国证券交易委员会（Securities and Exchange Commission）出台了一项规定，强制要求美国公司披露高管与普通员工的薪酬对比情况。许多大型上市公司高管薪酬失控，普通员工工资停滞不前，以及公司董事会无法将CEO薪酬与公司长期绩效有效挂钩等问题引发了越来越多的不满，这些都是推动证监会出台相关规定的主要原因。 按照有效的资本主义模式，公司应该根据多重因素提供CEO的薪酬，包括季度收益、长期绩效、股价增值、创新、资本回报率、员工满意度、客户维系等。但实际上，CEO的薪酬通常仅根据短期内能让分析师和投资者目眩神迷的几个指标，但实际上这些指标却根本无法反映公司基本面或未来的绩效潜力。 因此，对于股东活动家、工人权益倡导者和工会来说，美国证监会的举措看起来是利好消息，可实际上，这对于薪酬的现状不会有太大作用。 原因有很多。首先，大股东凭借强势的地位早已知晓高管的薪酬信息，所以，既然他们没有反对CEO的薪酬，也就不可能改变自己的立场；至于小股东，只要他们的股票在近期能够增值，他们才不关心高管薪酬。此外，《多德-弗兰克法案》（Dodd-Frank）的“薪酬发言权规定”虽然使股东有权反对过高的薪酬，但对公司董事会没有任何约束力，所以根本没有效果。此外，评估商业决策的长期意义，把它与高管短期薪酬挂钩，是一个非常复杂的过程，而且“追回利益”也很难操作。还有一个非常重要的理由，许多CEO对公司董事会及其个人的薪酬都有着不正当的影响力，有时候CEO往往还兼任公司董事会主席的职位。 最近，美国证监会一直在针对企业和公司积极出台有关政策，但新规定无法解决上述挑战，所以也很难产生什么影响。更有效的做法是，由政府对公司提供激励，使CEO薪酬合理化，比如税收抵免，以CEO与员工的薪酬比为基础确定税收抵免额。 假如公司的薪酬比为25:1，且公司共有300名员工，则公司可获得的税收抵免额为：1,000美元（每位工人未调整税收抵免额） x 1/25 （反向薪酬比） x 300 （员工人数） = 12,000美元 在上面这个示例中，薪酬比越低（或CEO与普通员工薪酬差距越小），税收抵免额越高，进而鼓励公司在制定CEO薪酬与初级员工工资时会更加谨慎。这个公式的一个附带作用是，公司也可能通过扩大招聘来获得税收减免，而在当前高失业率时期，这恰好也是政府亟待实现的一个目标。 |
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a rule that will compel U.S. companies to disclose how their top executive's pay compares to that of the average worker. The new rule is in response to growing criticism of runaway compensation at many large public companies, wage stagnation for rank-and-file workers, and the seeming inability of corporate boards to tie CEO paychecks to long-term company performance in an effective way. In an efficient capitalist model, companies would pay CEOs based on a variety of factors, including quarterly earnings, long-term performance, stock price appreciation, innovation, ROC (Return on Capital), employee satisfaction, and customer retention, among many other things. But in practice, CEO pay is often based on only a few metrics that may dazzle analysts and investors in the short run but may not reflect true business fundamentals or likely future performance. Given that, the SEC's move might seem like welcome news for shareholder activists, workers rights advocates, and labor unions, but it will do little to alter the status quo on pay. The reasons for this are many. For one, large shareholders already have access to this information due to their powerful position, and if they have not objected to a CEO's pay yet, they are unlikely to change their stance; plus smaller shareholders do not necessarily care about executive pay as long as their shares go up in value in the near term. Also, Dodd-Frank's say-on-pay rule, which enables shareholders to challenge oversize paychecks, is non-binding on corporate boards and therefore ineffective. On top of all of this, assessing the long- term implications of business decisions and tying them appropriately to short-term executive pay is complicated, and clawbacks can be tricky to execute. And if that weren't enough, many CEOs have undue influence over their boards -- and their own compensation -- sometimes by serving as chairman as well as CEO. The SEC has been especially active lately in policing the corporate sector, but the new rule cannot address any of the challenges mentioned above and so is unlikely to make a difference on its own. A more effective idea would be for the government to offer companies an incentive to rationalize CEO compensation, such as a tax credit, and to base that tax credit on the CEO-employee pay ratio. If a company had a pay ratio of 25:1 and 300 workers total, it would receive (for the sake of argument) the following tax credit: $1,000 (unadjusted tax credit per worker) X 1/25 (inverse pay ratio) X 300 (number of workers) = a total of $12,000 In this example, the lower the pay ratio (or the narrower the gap between the pay of the CEO and average workers), the bigger the tax credit, motivating businesses to be more thoughtful in setting compensation for CEOs as well as junior employees. A side benefit of this formula is that a company would also receive credit for hiring more workers, which is an equally worthwhile goal for our government to pursue at a time of high unemployment. |
