If your life’s goal is to be a highly paid chief executive officer, the U.S. is the place. But if your dream is just to be richer than society, South Africa and India are great bets too.

In either case, probably best to avoid Thailand, Poland and China.

A Bloomberg ranking of CEO compensation at companies filling benchmark indexes in 25 of the world’s largest economies shows the biggest paychecks -- by far -- are written in the U.S. Heads of S&P 500 businesses get pay packages averaging $16.9 million, about 2.6 times more than what their counterparts reap abroad. In second-place Switzerland, CEOs get 1.6 times the average. Read More