In times both bullish and bearish, there is periodic outrage over huge compensation packages for executives at publicly traded companies. The recent wave of corporate scandals only inflamed concerns that companies' boards of directors, too cozy with CEO's, were betraying their duty to shareholders. Reacting, defenders of corporate America have often offered "rotten apple" theories and other explanations that deny any systemic problem. Inadequate, say Lucian Bebchuk, a professor of law, economics, and finance at Harvard University, and Jesse Fried, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. In Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation (Harvard University Press), the scholars uncover what they say are widespread, persistent, and indeed systemic flaws in compensation arrangements. ($$$)