Executive Pay: My Big Fat C.E.O. Paycheck

The spectacle of once-respected corporate titans doing perp walks - Martha Stewart, Bernard J. Ebbers, Richard M. Scrushy, the list seems endless - has pretty well tarnished the title of chief executive. But it has done little, it seems, to scratch the gilt from the corner office.

In fact, the boss enjoyed a hefty raise last year. The chief executives at 179 large companies that had filed proxies by last Tuesday - and had not changed leaders since last year - were paid about $9.84 million, on average, up 12 percent from 2003, according to Pearl Meyer & Partners, the compensation consultants.

Surely, chief executives must have done something spectacular to justify all that, right? Well, that's not so clear. The link between rising pay and performance remained muddy - at best.

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