I am not shocked in the least by this story:

Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers paid their executives largely in stock, and that stock lost most or all of its value when those companies collapsed.

Many people on Wall Street say these examples help make the case that pay incentives were not what caused executives at these fallen firms to take excessive risks.

But three professors at Harvard are disputing that logic in a new study, saying it is an urban myth that executives at Bear and Lehman were wiped out along with their companies.

Though the chiefs at both investment banks lost more than $900 million in their stock holdings, the professors argue that it is important to also consider all the riches the bankers took off the table in the years preceding the crisis.

   You can read all about this in The Audacity of Greed.