Benchmarking inflates CEO's salaries

Do you know how much your CEO is worth? The air may be rare and the position precarious, but most CEOs are still riding high:

It sure would be sweet to have your pay based on what the highest earners make in your industry, or better yet in any industry.

That isn't how it works for most employees, but it is certainly a reality for many of the nation's CEOs. Their already out-of-the-ballpark pay has soared over the last decade thanks largely to how benchmarks are used in determining their compensation.

However, with increasing shareholder pressure and other forces at work, there is a countervaling trend, with more and more firms now adjusting compensation at the top:

Those kind of pressures are certainly pushing some companies to change their benchmarks. Mercer Human Resources Consulting, which works with many big U.S. companies, said that it has started seeing what it describes as a "move toward the median" among its clients.