CEOs don't come cheap. In fact, they don't even go cheap. They cost their companies a fortune in terms of their compensation. As a result, they are rich during their tenure and richer after retirement. Right through the 1990s into the 2000s, their paychecksthe things that make them richgot fatter and fatter. According to the Fortune, even in a year when the total return on the S&P 500 dropped by 22.1% and though the average CEO compensation fell by 23% in 2002, to about $15.7 mn, the earnings of the middle-of-the-road CEO went up by 14%, to $13.2 mn. However, the happy days for CEOs are starting to get soarer as shareholders are finally nailing down the bloating paychecks. Recently at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), for instance, shareholders voted against the pay policies for senior management including a `golden parachute' for the CEO, JeanPierre Garnier. The heartening part of the issue is that GSK's case is not an isolated one. Shareholders worldwide are becoming more and more antagonistic to extravagant CEO compensation. Even then there is a portent question that lingersis shareholder ire a result of the slump and would it wane as earnings improve?

CEO compensation wasn't always high. The 1980s and 1990s saw an unprecedented rise in the pay scale and composition of the compensation changed as well. In the 1980s major corporations went on a cost-cutting spree that boosted the bottom lines. CEOs who had orchestered the higher pay-offs for investors were cheered by Wall Street and their pay rose in sharp contrast to that of workers whose pay either declined or stagnated since then. On top of that the bull run and the period of prosperity of 1990s made CEOs something of `pin up' boys. They were seen as powerful people who could change the destinies of millions of people. Corporate boards and their compensation committees fell over each other to give the best compensation in an urge to retain the best talent with them.

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