Kenneth Feinberg, the government appointed "special master for executive compensation," (often referred to as the Pay Czar), will approve the pay packages of the top 25 earners at companies that received more than one bailout from the government.  New York Times reporter Eric Dash writes that average compensation for those executives is expected to drop 11% from last year.  That is a significant drop, but compensation fell more last year.  The average pay for the top earners is now $1.62 million, down "nearly 77 percent from 2008."  And yet, the impact of this drop on executive retention is not so big, at least not yet.  

For months, Wall Street banks and the troubled automakers feverishly protested that their top executives would flee if they were not lavishly rewarded for their talents. New data, however, suggests the departures were more of a trickle than a flood.

Of the 104 senior executives whose pay was set by the federal pay regulator in the last two years, 88 executives, or nearly 85 percent, are still with the companies even though their pay was drastically cut back, according to people briefed on the government data.

The relative stability, at least within the executive suite, suggests that a soft job market, corporate loyalty and personal pride helped deter the feared management exodus at the companies hardest hit by the pay rules.

Read Few Fled Companies Constrained by Pay Limits here.