U.S. Executive Compensation in Historical Perspective

Executive compensation is one of the central issues of modern corporate governance, but its history has received surprisingly little attention. This draft chapter for the forthcoming Research Handbook on Executive Compensation (Jennifer Hill & Randall Thomas, eds.) surveys the development of, and conflicts over, U. S. executive compensation across the twentieth century, paying particular attention to political, social, and legal contexts sometimes underplayed in accounts more tightly focused on pay level and composition. It closes by identifying several as-yet unresolved puzzles raised by the history of executive compensation