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When it comes to our understanding of the distribution and exercise of political power in the US, does it matter that women have not been able to break the glass ceiling? Most political decisions in the US are shaped by the preferences of elites. However, despite of important economic gains women continue to play a minor, and rather peripheral role, in the US business elite, with very few of them appointed to top management or to the CEO position, and an even smaller number belonging to the inner circle of corporate board directors. In parallel, the number of women who are millionaires is on the increase, but their impact on the political process is still small. Women are the majority of eligible and actual voters, and non-elite and elite women in particular have different political preferences than men – especially in the areas of social spending. However, in spite of the increased concerns with the high levels of inequality in the US, little or no change can be expected if women's voices continue to be drowned by the overwhelming male presence in the commanding heights of the business landscape.

When politicians feel popular pressure to act, but are unwilling or unable to address the root cause of the problem, they resort to symbolic policymaking. In this paper, I examine excessive executive compensation as an issue that rose to the top of the political agenda during both the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Presidential candidates, members of Congress, the media, and the public alike blamed corporate greed for the economic downturn. In both instances, however, enacted legislation stopped short of changing the way in which executive pay was determined or placing effective, enforceable limits on it. I analyze the nature of the democratic process and contend that public policy scholars need to pay more attention to the occurrence of symbolic policies. The category of symbolic policies offers a more accurate approach to understanding the politics of executive compensation in the United States during the two crises and helps explain why, in spite of the recent legislative efforts, it continues to rise.

Because of popular and political pressure, governments have been compelled to regulate 'excessive' executive compensation and search both a policy and political solution. In this paper, I seek to establish the mechanisms of policy learning, competition, and emulation by examining American and British regulatory policies of executive compensation that show evidence of reciprocal diffusion, i.e. from the US to the UK and vice versa. The evidence suggests that during the past two decades, the extent of reciprocal policy diffusion varied and was primarily driven by policy learning. Using published government reports, press releases, public hearings, newspaper articles, and interviews, I demonstrate that reciprocal learning occurred because one country's policymakers and practitioners explicitly discussed and/or referred to the practices in the other country when deciding to adopt a specific policy solution to the problem of excessive executive pay. I discuss the implications for the literature on diffusion and point out avenues for future research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.