“Exxon is looking at making investments that are 25-, 50- year decisions,” George said. “You’re not going to make those investments if you’re looking to optimize your one- to three- year return.”

The average economic profit-to-CEO pay ratio over the past three years at companies including PepsiCo Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Philip Morris International Inc. rank near the top for S&P 100 companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

General Electric Co. is near the bottom. The company has negative three-year average economic profit of $5.4 billion and it awarded CEO Jeffrey Immelt $31 million last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It has more than $250 billion of debt, the majority of which was used to fund its lending arm, GE Capital.

Cola, Cigarettes

“Our investors use return on equity to measure performance at GE Capital,” said Seth Martin, a company spokesman. “This is the standard return metric for the financial services industry. GE Capital ROE is included in GE’s return on total capital, and is more accurate than economic profit metrics in measuring how we have performed in both our industrial and financial segments.”

The company’s return on equity is more than 11 percent, about double its weighted average cost of capital, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Pepsi shareholders are also getting a deal with CEO Indra Nooyi, who was paid $20.5 million for 2013, equal to 0.3 percent of its three-year average economic profit. The company increased revenue and profit margins since 2012 while increasing investments in research, development, marketing and advertising.

Philip Morris, which sells Marlboro cigarettes outside the U.S., has a three-year average economic profit of $7.1 billion and paid CEO Andre Calantzopoulos $12.2 million for 2013, which is also among the best for S&P 100 CEOs.

Salesforce.com

Economic profit isn’t always the best way to measure pay for performance, especially at growth-stage companies, whose investors prefer they make long-term investments at the expense of current profit, said Harper, the financial analyst.