Australian CEOs would agree with Woody Allen’s maxim that “80% of success is showing up.” A new report from the Australian Council of Super Investors (CEO Pay in the Top 100 Companies) notes (p. 11):
The lack of correlation between cash bonuses and shareholder returns is also apparent from the stability of bonus payments over the period 2004 to 2010…Since 2004 more than 85 percent of sample CEOs have received a bonus in every year other than in 2009 when in the depth of the financial crisis, 82 percent of sample CEOs received a bonus.
Queensland Economy Watch 
At the risk of being pedantic, that report is not very sophisticated. Consider the terminology: bonus. Is CEO pay really a “bonus” or is it at risk compensatio? So why not expect some element of at risk payment (as opposed to bonus) to be paid? Surely the better figure is some measure % of possible at risk pay. The literature on framing tells us this is important. Similarly, the use of the word incentive. Few people realize the theory on CEO incentives is that they stimulate risk taking, not effort, so there would be a very volatile relationship with performance. Throw in market forces, pay camouflage, leapfrogging due to benchmarking, hangover payments, and inducements to join and it all gets ver complex very quickly. Not that I’m defending the quantum nit escalation – just saying it is very complex.
It’s a very interesting debate. Whatever the payments are called there does seem to be a lot of evidence to say they are excessive in many cases on a global scale. Watch the documentary ‘Inside Job’ if you get a chance.