High Pay Centre's Fat Cat Wednesday figures don't make sense, says Sam Bowman in the IB Times

Executive Director Sam Bowman's comments appeared in the International Business Times, criticising the High Pay Centre's figures on executive pay:

"None of these complaints are valid unless the High Pay Centre thinks it has a better way of estimating the value of executives to firms than those firms themselves. Can the High Pay Centre tell us how much CEOs are worth? If not, how can they say that they are overpaid?

"Chief executives can be worth quite a lot to firms, as is shown by huge moves in company share prices when good CEOs are hired, or bad CEOs are fired. Steve Jobs can make a firm; Steve Ballmer can break a firm. The High Pay Commission's complaints only make sense if you assume firms don't actually care about making money – which is to say, they don't make sense at all."

Sam also appeared on Sky News to discuss the topic.