DealZone

UPDATE: Watch a Reuters video interview with Ariely.

What do turn of the century lab rats, clutch NBA players like Michael Jordan, and Wall Street's highest-paid executives have in common? Dan Ariely has some ideas.

"We study the irrationality of people and markets. 2008 was a very good year for us," the behavioral economist noted wryly at the Poptech conference on Thursday.

As pay czar Kenneth Feinberg prepares his plan to slash bonuses at bailed-out banks and automakers, perhaps it's time to question one of the central assumptions of the exec comp status quo: Does more compensation always make people more motivated and better at their jobs?

Ariely's research suggests that past a certain level, it can have the exact opposite effect. "People have the tendency to villainize Wall Street," Ariely said, "but the real enemy is human nature."

Rewind the clock to 1909, when economists Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson put some rats in a maze. Parts of it were electrified. The question: Would higher levels of electricity (and hence pain, avoidance of which is a powerful incentive) make the rats learn the maze any faster?

Ken Lewis started at Bank of America 40 years ago, working his way up from junior credit analyst to the CEO suite. His employment contract at the nation’s largest banks obviously predates the government’s bailout of Bank of America. Yet pay czar Kenneth Feinberg may have a say on whether he cashes in on retirement benefits and accumulated compensation worth $125 million.

Some argue it is simply inappropriate for Feinberg to try to tackle Lewis’ retirement package.

“A fair reading of the situation would be he is getting what he is entitled to and game over,” said Alan Johnson, a Wall Street compensation consultant.

Is pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg going to name and shame?

At a speech yesterday in Washington, Feinberg said he planned to disclose the pay for the top 25 employees at Wall Street firms within the next 30 days, according to a research note by Jaret Seiberg, of Concept Capital. Seiberg saw Feinberg’s talk.

But it is not clear if names would be redacted from that disclosure, with perhaps only titles and salaries revealed.

Feinberg is charged with examining pay packages at companies that received government bailout money, including Citigroup <C.N> and American International Group Inc. <AIG.N>

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s recent comments on compensation may seem like a call for responsibility in the financial services industry, but they may also be self serving. 

Speaking at a conference in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Blankfein said that financial institutions that lose money should not pay outsized bonuses. 

That seems fairly reasonable, but if Wall Street really did embrace that policy, Goldman could benefit. Look at this year: so far Goldman has earned $5.2 billion, while Morgan Stanley has lost $1.8 billion. If Morgan Stanley refrained from paying big bonuses, which bank would be well positioned to hire its top talent?  

Not much rides on Goldman Sachs‘ success at shedding TARP – just the future of Wall Street, the recovery of the U.S. and global economies, and saving whatever shreds remain of the American Dream. Though it may take some financial finagling to extricate itself from the government’s grip, Goldman’s storied stable of financial savants is as capable as any of casting off the yoke of socialism.

For Wall Street, Goldman fights for the right to pay people whatever the market will bear, enshrining the guiding principal of the marketplace that it is not how much money one earns, but how much more than the other guy. For the economy, everyone knows we need a healthy banking sector to run our particularly high-octane form of capitalism. As for the American Dream, what this country needs most in this time of financial peril is a hero, someone who can stand up to the regulatory Frankenstein shambling from the wreckage of such spectacularly failed government efforts as AIG and Lehman Brothers.

The only question really for Goldman shareholders is how big a bonus Lloyd Blankfein should get if he manages to achieve these lofty goals.

It’s hard to imagine a less free-market initiative than having Washington approve executive compensation packages. But by the same token, the astronomical fees charged by many company chiefs would seem to defy laws of gravity, though not necessarily nature. Top athletes know the score: executive compensation has a relational value that outweighs its nominal one. That is to say, it’s not how much you get paid that’s important; it’s whether your paycheck is bigger than your competitor’s. That’s how Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein can walk away with a $65 million pay check in 2006. This is a nonsensical amount of money – more than could be spent by the family Blankfein over several generations. But for Goldman Sachs shareholders, it represents a trophy.

The Senate is doubtless trying to take a deep breath after the House passed legislation aimed at taxing bonuses of AIG and other recipients of government aid. Over at the White House, details of a plan to go Dutch with private investors on the bill for the years-long rave that ended with Wall Street’s crash last year are due later today. And speaking of Dutch, the Finance Ministry in The Hague said it would tackle bonuses at companies receiving government support. And big Dutch bank ING said it was asking some staff to give back their bonus payments for 2008.

The Netherlands and the United States are in similar ways two of the biggest boosters of commercial capitalism in the history of Western civilization. Clearly, they should be taking the lead in rewriting the theory of financial Darwinism.