Abstract
The divergence between executive compensation and median employee wages has reached historic levels, yet current methods for determining "fair" pay often rely on peer benchmarking and market heuristics rather than structural logic. This paper proposes a new mathematical framework for determining the CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio () based on the internal architecture of the corporation. By integrating the Pareto Principle with organizational hierarchy theory, we derive a scalable model that calculates executive impact as a function of the company's size, span of control, and number of management levels.
Our results demonstrate that a scientifically grounded approach can justify executive compensation across a wide range of organization sizes—from startups to multinational firms—while providing a defensible upper bound that aligns with organizational productivity. Comparison with empirical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests that this model provides a robust baseline for boards of directors and regulatory bodies seeking transparent and equitable compensation standards.
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1. Introduction
The compensation of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) has evolved from a matter of private contract into a significant issue of public policy and corporate ethics. Over the past four decades, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker pay has swelled from approximately 20-to-1 in 1965 to over 300-to-1 in recent years .
Developing a "fair" compensation model is not merely a question of capping wealth, but of aligning the interests of the executive with those of the shareholders, employees, and the broader society. As management legend Peter Drucker famously noted:
"I have over the years come to the conclusion that (a ratio) of 20-to-1 is the limit beyond which it is very difficult to maintain employee morale and a sense of common purpose."
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2. Overview of Existing Works and Theories
The academic literature on CEO compensation generally falls into three primary schools of thought: Agency Theory , Managerial Power Hypothesis , and Social Comparison Theory . While these provide qualitative insights, they often lack a predictive mathematical engine that accounts for the physical size and complexity of the firm.
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3. Principles and Assumptions
We propose a framework for estimating the CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio () based on five realistic and verifiable assumptions:
Assumption 1: The Pareto Principle. We utilize the 80/20 rule, assuming that the top 20% of a leadership hierarchy is responsible for 80% of strategic results .
Assumption 2: Span of Control. The model incorporates the total number of employees (), hierarchical levels (), and the average number of direct reports (), benchmarked at .
Assumption 3: Productivity Benchmarking. The average worker's productivity () is set to 1 to establish a baseline for relative scaling.
Assumption 4: Hierarchical Scaling. Strategic impact increases as one moves up the organizational levels, but at a decaying rate of intensity ().
Assumption 5: Occam’s Razor. We prioritize the simplest mathematical explanation that fits the observed wage data .
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4. The CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio ()
The fair compensation of a CEO () is expressed as:
(1)
Where is the average worker's salary. For an organization with hierarchical levels, we calculate the number of levels as:
(2)
The total CEO productivity ratio is then modeled as a geometric progression of impact:
(3)
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5. Model Discussion
To validate the model, we compared our theoretical against Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data groups .
The current statistics: Ranges for employee salaries (S1, S2), CEO Compensation (CEO1, CEO2), and CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratios (R:1) (R1, R2) are presented in the table below.
Table 1.
Data Ranges
.
Employee Count (N)Employee Salary (S1)Employee Salary (S2)CEO Comp. (CEO1)CEO Comp. (CEO2)Reported Ratio (R1)Reported Ratio (R1)
15 $40 $60 $70 $110 10 30
60 $55 $70 $150 $30020 50
300 $108 $110$700 $1,400 50 150
750 $115 $130 $900 $1,400 70 200
1,500 $120 $135$1,000 $1,500 80 200
3,500 $130 $150$1,200 $2,000 100 250
7,500 $135 $155 $1,500 $2,500 120 300
15,000 $140 $160 $1,800 $3,000 150 350
60,000 $145 $160$2,000 $4,000 200 400
125,000 $145 $155 $2,500 $5,000 250 500
175,000 $145 $155 $3,000 $6,000 300 600
250,000 $70 $90 $19,000 $25,000 300 700
350,000 $60 $86 $20,000 $30,000 350 800
450,000 $50 $80 $20,000 $30,000 400 800
550,000 $40 $70 $20,000 $30,000 400 900
650,000 $40 $70 $18,000 $25,000 300 600
Using values of and , the model tracks the reported ratios of mid-to-large cap companies with high accuracy.
Table 2.
Comparative Analysis of Reported vs. Modeled Pay Ratios
.
Employee Count (N)Average Salary (S)CEO Comp.Reported Ratio (R)Model R_ceo
15$50K$90K20:17:1
60 $63 $225 35 16
300$109K$1,050K100:134:1
750 $123 $1,150 135 51
1,500$128 $1,250 140 67
3,500$140 $1,600 175 91
7,500 $145 $2,000 210 117
15,000$150K$2,400K250:1144:1
60,000 $153 $3,000 300 210
125,000 $150 $3,750 375 251
175,000 $150 $4,500 450 271
250,000$80K$22,000K500:1293:1
550,000$55K$25,000K650:1345:1
650,000 $55 $21,500 450 357
Notes: This table compares empirical (reported) CEO-to-employee pay ratios from large public firms against modeled estimates (Model Rceo), which adjust for factors like company size, industry, and equity components. Data is illustrative based on 2024–2025 benchmarks; actual ratios vary widely.
Figure 1. "CEO Payment Model vs Data" illustrates the comparison.
Figure 1.
CEO Payment Model vs Data
.
Special cases like Tesla (2024) demonstrate that while traditional hierarchy explains baseline pay, performance-based stock options can create extreme outliers reaching ratios of 40,000:1 .
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6. Conclusion
This paper has introduced a consistent and scientifically grounded framework for determining CEO compensation. By shifting the focus from "market guessing" to hierarchical productivity scaling, we provide a transparent justification for executive pay. As an additional feature, the upper bounds of managerial remuneration at all hierarchical levels can be identified across corporations of any size.
The strength of this model is its mathematical consistency across all scales of enterprise. While determining the exact hierarchical decay constant () remains an area for further empirical refinement, the framework itself provides a logical and defensible constraint on executive compensation, ensuring alignment between leadership rewards and structural organizational impact.
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7. References
1. Mishel, L. and Kandra, J. (2021). "CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,322% since 1978," EPI.
2. Drucker, P. F. (1984). "The Changed World Economy," Foreign Affairs.
3. Jensen, M. C. and Meckling, W. H. (1976). "Theory of the firm," J. Finan. Econ.
4. Bebchuk, L. A. and Fried, J. M. (2004). Pay Without Performance. Harvard University Press.
5. Adams, J. S. (1963). "Towards an understanding of inequity," J. Abnorm. Soc. Psych.
6. Koch, R. (1998). The 80/20 Principle. Currency.
7. Gurbuz, S. (2021). "Span of Control," Palgrave Encyclopedia.
8. Baker, A. (2007). "Occam's Razor," Stanford Encyclopedia.
9. BLS (2024). "Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics," U.S. Dept of Labor.
10. Hull, B. (2024). "Tesla’s Musk pay package analysis," Reuters.
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