It's often in the unintended consequences that the most interesting stories can be found. Decades ago, well intentioned attempts to cap cash salaries for CEOs opened up the wonderful world of options and restricted stock, which today drive executive pay to hundreds of multiples above their employees.
Only in this last year must publicly held companies now disclose that ratio in their SEC filings. The focus has been primarily on the ratio of CEO to median, but the median data itself is perhaps far more interesting.
The New York Times did some interesting analysis to look at the data through an economic lens. I think it’s actually quite revealing how Walmart and Amazon look very similar. The valuation of Amazon is partly based on some future profitability, but I think this suggests that Amazon might already be at a level appropriate for its industry. Perhaps it is not really any different an oppressor of workers than big corporations have always been.
There were also some good graphical presentations of the data, like at
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