The executive pay racket is anti-business – it’s time for a clampdown

Excessive executive pay is bad for business, says Matthew Lynn. A lot more still needs to be done to curb the abuse.

Every so often something unexpected, and actually quite good, happens. A Brit finally wins Wimbledon. Mobile phones all get the same charger. Cars use far less petrol. And, perhaps most unexpected of all, executive pay finally starts to come under some form of control.

After a decade during which the pay of FTSE chief executives spiralled out of control, the trend has now gone into reverse. Thanks in part to the so-called shareholder spring' of two years ago, when a series of big revolts were recorded against ludicrous packages, average CEO pay has now been falling for two years in a row.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.