If you're the CEO of a small cap company, the good news is that your compensation is tracking with the CEOs of S&P 500 companies.

The bad news is, it's falling.

According to a recent study of FY03 proxies by compensation firm Equilar, Inc., median CEO total direct compensation dropped 1.2 percent for S&P 500 CEOs, and 4.3 percent for CEOs at Small Cap companies.

What was interesting, according to Equilar, was the way in which the groups made identical compensation changes.

Both groups increased their cash compensation, and the value and number of CEOs who received restricted stock awards increased for both groups.

The big difference, of course, was the amounts for each group. Median total direct compensation for S&P 500 CEOs was over $6.8 million, while the number for small cap CEOs was just north of $1.4 million.

Details from Equilar are below:

Download Details On The Study