These uncertain times present difficulties for the people who set pay levels. Remuneration committees, responsible for the pay of top executives, have as challenging a job as any compensation and benefits manager.
How should they reward a chief executive who is steering a company through a tight and competitive market, with declining sales and profits? What should a director receive this year if they were paid a handsome bonus last year for winning business that turned out to be worth half the value the company thought it was 18 months ago? What should a star performer receive if the company as a whole is struggling?

These are the sorts of questions that remuneration committee chairs will face when they return this month from their summer breaks. They will not be short of advice. The Financial Services Authority has already laid the blame for the credit crunch and the collapse in profits partly at the door of poor incentive design. Institutional shareholders have been raising concerns about rising executive reward and the sometimes weak link between pay and performance. Journalists have not been slow to criticise now that share prices have fallen and the economic slowdown has begun to bite.