While most discussions of executive compensation criticize the seemingly inflated pay CEO receive compared to their performance, an article in Crain’s Detroit Business takes a rather unique approach. In it, CFO’s complain not that CEO pay has risen too much – but that their pay has not kept pace.

After the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and in the wake of many prominent corporate scandals, CFO pay rose due to increased the increased duties and responsibilities of the position; nonetheless, the gap between CEO and CFO pay has only risen in the years since.

According to the article, examining S&P 500 companies, median CFO pay fell from $2.69 million in 2004 to $2.61 million in 2006. In the same time period, CFO compensation as a percentage of CEO compensation fell from 36.1% to 32.2%. The article speculates that much of this difference can be attributed to the perceived importance of the CEO the “corporate breadwinners.”

Of course, the obvious question that is never raised is – using the logic of downstream overpayment effects – whether, despite the CFO-CEO pay gap, both positions are overpaid. Food for thought...