It is true that CEO pay has gone up—top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s, CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top American corporation now makes about $18.9 million a year.

    The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of America’s highest-earning 1% have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy. It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U.S. economy.

    Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply being able to “run the company”. CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can be significant. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly mind-boggling. Plus, virtually all major American companies are becoming tech companies, often with their own research and development. And beyond this, major CEOs still have to do all the day-to-day work they have always done.

    The common idea that high CEO pay is mainly about ripping people off doesn’t explain history very well. By most measures, corporate governance has become a lot tighter and more rigorous since the 1970s. Yet it is principally during this period of stronger governance that CEO pay has been high and rising. That suggests it is in the broader corporate interest to recruit top candidates for increasingly tough jobs.

    Furthermore, the highest CEO salaries are paid to outside candidates, not to the cozy insider picks, another sign that high CEO pay is not some kind of depredation at the expense of the rest of the company. And the stock market reacts positively when companies tie CEO pay to, say, stock prices, a sign that those practices build up corporate value not just for the CEO.

答案精析：本题为细节题。根据题干中的predecessors和are required to可定位至原文第三段第三句，其中predecessors为原词复现，are required to对应原文中的need。该句提到，他们也需要具备比他们的前辈更优秀的公关技能，因为哪怕只是一个小小的失误，也可能需要付出巨大的代价。后面第四句接着指出，此外，美国大公司比以往任何时候都更加全球化，供应链遍布更多国家。由此可知，如今的CEO们必须能够经营更加全球化的公司，故正确答案为D项。

错项排除：A项中的sense of teamwork在原文中没有提及，只提到了应有sense of financial markets（对金融市场的良好感知），属于偷换概念，故排除。B项利用第三段倒数第二句中的research and development进行干扰，但原文只是在说CEO们要拥有足够丰富的知识，因为几乎所有美国大公司都在变成科技公司，并且通常都有自己的研发团队，文中并没有提到要加大对研发的投入，故B项错误。C项利用closer ties进行干扰，但文中并未提及要与tech companies建立联系的相关信息，故排除。