The conclusion of Executive Excess 2008:

Journalists have been writing about rising executive pay since the early 1980s. Over the past quarter-century, poll after poll has shown widespread public opposition to our contemporary CEO pay levels. Almost every high-ranking political leader in the United States has, at one time or another, expressed dismay over pay at America’s corporate summit. Surveys have found that even those individuals directly responsible for setting executive pay levels — the members of corporate boards of directors — feel we have a serious executive pay problem.

Yet, year after year, nothing changes. Executive pay continues to rise much faster than compensation elsewhere in the U.S. economy. Does all this mean that rising executive pay reflects some inexorable natural economic phenomenon? Not at all. Public policies, we have detailed in this edition of Executive Excess, have fueled the executive pay explosion. We can change public policies.

Historically, troubled economic times in the United States have helped generate long overdue public policy reforms. We have now entered troubled economic times, likely our worst since executive pay started ballooning in the 1980s. Ballooning executive pay has helped create our current economic woes. Deflating that excess can help end them.