A new study released today by The Conference Board found that CEOs of the nation’s largest companies receive a relatively high proportion of the compensation in the form of stock and options. Many see this as good news since it ties their pay to performance, but others are quick to argue that the stock is often granted to them while the options are often issued deep in-the-money and do not necessarily incentive them as heavily as many would have you believe.

"There is a lot of debate about how making chief executives feel at risk for the stock price will align their interests more closely with those of the shareholders,” the report’s authors wrote. “Under this logic, big multiples are good – it should make the CEO think more like shareholders. This measure would suggest that a significant degree of alignment [of CEO and shareholder goals] should have been achieved already, especially for the largest companies."