The push for more openness in figuring out exactly how top executives are paid is yielding a few more results, if somewhat grudgingly, pay consultants say.

A new study [subscription required] by Equilar, an executive-compensation benchmarking firm, shows that overall disclosure is up among Fortune 100 companies. At the same time, more companies are detailing specific performance targets for their executives to meet. This covers all types of compensation plans.

From 2006 to 2007, the number of firms doing so rose about 10 percentage points, to 66.4 percent, according to an Equilar review of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Those disclosures included cash bonuses as well as longer term incentive plans, the Redwood Shores, California, consulting firm said.

Among the Fortune 100 companies with annual bonus plans—the ones that usually get the most attention—more than two-thirds disclosed the actual performance targets their executives must meet to earn the payouts, according to the study. That contrasts with only 44 percent of such companies making a comparable amount of detail available last year.

A similar study by another compensation consulting firm, Watson Wyatt, reached comparable conclusions: More than two-thirds (68 percent) of the 75 large publicly traded companies it studied disclosed the actual goals on which they based rewards under their annual incentive plans, up from 54 percent that disclosed goals last year. For longer term incentives, 57 percent included the goals, compared with 45 percent a year ago.

"Fuller disclosure of specific performance targets for executives has been a major point of emphasis for the S.E.C. over the past year, and we are clearly seeing improvements in this year's proxies," said Alexander Cwirko-Godycki, Equilar's research manager.

"The biggest gains in disclosure surround annual-incentive-plan targets, which have traditionally been closely guarded by companies," Cwirko-Godycki added.

The Equilar study found that of the companies it looked at, 81 percent benchmark short-term performance against only internal company goals. In contrast, almost 61 percent of the companies that benchmark performance over the long term use relative measures, such as comparing performance with peer companies.

Clawback Calculator These C.E.O.'s were paid too much. How much should shareholders claw back?

Steve Seelig, executive-compensation counsel at Watson Wyatt, said he was baffled as to why one-third of the companies that his firm studied still don't disclose more about executive pay.

"Most companies have a very positive pay-for-performance story to share, yet a surprisingly large number are not taking the opportunity to tell it," Seelig said. "Showing how executive pay varies with performance and compares to the competition would go a long way in addressing the concerns of shareholders and critics of the U.S. executive-pay model."

Watson Wyatt did note that some companies are working to reduce what it said are "some of the less shareholder-friendly or noncore elements of compensation." These include executive pensions and severance.

About one out of 10 companies reported changes to executive pensions. All of the firms that made changes to their severance or change-in-control programs—24 percent of the total—reduced the potential payments to executives.

"Companies are increasingly sensitive to the appropriateness of existing severance and change-in-control provisions," said Ira Kay, Watson Wyatt's global director of compensation consulting. "As a result, companies are putting more emphasis on maintaining core pay programs that are well aligned with corporate performance."