"This certainly is a controversial point. Whenever we hear about large CEO salaries, people get their ire up because they think, 'Gee, how could someone be earning so much more than I am?,'" says Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "Well, as a rule of thumb, when you look at the labor market, a worker's pay is going to be related to the value of their job, and the fact of the matter is for CEOs, they make many, many decisions every day that could be worth millions if not in some cases billions of dollars.

"So when ... every decision that you make could make money or potentially could lose money for the company of that order, obviously companies want to get good people, and the way to get good people in many cases is to pay them a lot of money," he adds. "So, for example, if you have a CEO who maybe is paid $100 million a year yet (he or she makes) decisions over the course of the year that could potentially make a billion dollars for the company, the company could say that CEO is actually a bargain."