Management Today's Leadership Lessons

M&A activity, pay disparities and it’s the economy, stupid

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Episode notes

On this week’s episode of The Debrief, MT’s editorial team discusses what we can expect from the economy in the next few years and research from EY suggesting that CEO confidence in the global outlook is fuelling M&A activity.

As political strategist James Carville famously drilled into Bill Clinton campaign staffers, “it’s the economy, stupid”. But after several years of successive disruptions, precisely which economic variables should we be watching most closely? Adam Gale enlisted the help of two economists – one micro and one macro – to answer this question. We take you through their analysis.

Median pay for a FTSE 100 CEO reached £4.19m in 2023, according to the High Pay Centre – that’s 120 times that of the median full-time worker. At the same time, new research, which looked at workforce dynamics in a number of advanced capitalist economies, has identified a trend of “dramatically declining exposure of top earners to bottom earners”. The potential implications of this growing segregation are multifaceted – but universally bleak, as we discuss.

Links:

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/economy-know-watching-briefs-significant-piece-legislation/indepth/article/1886971

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/research-ceo-confidence-drive-m-a-activity-despite-macroeconomic-uncertainties/indepth/article/1887287

https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/research-top-earners-increasingly-isolated-bottom-pay-hierarchy/indepth/article/1886849

Credits:

Presenters: Antonia Garrett Peel and Éilis Cronin

Producer: Til Owen

Artwork: David Robinson

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