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since the 1970s可定位至原文第四段第二句。该句说到，从大多数指标来看，自20世纪70年代以来，企业管理变得愈发苛刻和严格。该段第三句接着说到，然而，正是在公司加强管理的这段时期，CEO的薪酬一直处于高位，并且还在不断上升。由此可知，尽管企业管理很严格，CEO的薪酬还是在上涨。B项中的corporate governance为原词复现，strict对应原文中的tighter and more rigorous，故正确答案为B项。

错项排除：A项利用原文最后一段第一句出现的outside candidates和insider picks进行干扰，但该句说的是最高的CEO薪酬是付给外部候选人的，而不是内部提拔的人选，此处并没有提及持续的内部对抗，故A项错误。前文讨论了近年来对CEO的商业能力提出了更高要求，这意味着CEO薪酬上涨与其商业策略的升级密切相关，而C项“保守的商业策略”与此内容相悖，故排除。D项利用文中多次出现的governance进行干扰，但repeated warnings（反复的警告）在原文中并无依据，原文只是说企业管理比以前更严格，但这并不妨碍CEO的薪酬上涨，故D项错误。