委托代理问题与企业投资行为

在股权高度分散的企业中,经理人拥有企业控制权,广大分散股东拥有企业的有权,由于二者之间的效用函数差异及信息不对称的存在,产生了第1类代理问题.股权高度集中、大股东控制的公司在我国普遍存在,大股东和中小股东之间的代理问题广泛存在于我国的上市公司中.这些问题如何影响企业的投资行为?这种影响对我们现实的企业管理和公司治理又有何种启示?这是本文主要考虑的问题.     

控制股东的掏空行为与公司的股权结构及公司价值——基于双层委托代理模型的分析

本文构建了一个小股东、控制股东和经理人之间的双层委托代理理论分析框架来分析我国上市公司中同时存在的两类代理问题:股东与经理人的利益冲突以及控制股东与小股东的利益冲突。在此基础上着重研究了控制股东掏空行为与公司股权结构及公司价值之间的关系。通过分析指出:(1)均衡状态下,公司的所有权集中程度由公司股东所受投资者法律保护程度决定。随着投资者法律保护程度的增加,小股东最优的投资数量也会增加,公司的所有权结构趋于更加分散。(2)在公司的现金流所有权结构确定的情况下,由股东和经理人之间的信息非对称性引起的股东和经理人之间的利益冲突会减少公司价值,使得控制股东和小股东的利益均受到损害。控制股东掏空资产收益的比例随着其自身现金流所有权的增加而减少,随着其控制权和所有权之间的分离程度而增加,随着投资者法律保护的增加而减少。(3)相对于公司中仅仅存在股东和经理人之间的利益冲突的情形,控制股东的掏空行为会进一步降低公司的价值,而且降低的程度会随着控制股东的控制权和所有权的分离程度的增加而增加。(4)当控制股东完全不能进行掏空时,即使小股东仍然面临由于公司中的第Ⅰ类代理问题引起的利益损害,但均衡时,由于控制股东和小股东之间不存在利...     

中国上市公司的独立董事制度分析

上市公司的独立董事有别于执行董事,他与股东没有直接的利益关系.设立独立董事主要是英美模式和东亚模式企业制度的规定,与德国模式设立监事会的企业制度不同,也与日本模式不设监事会、只设董事会的企业制度有所区别.英美模式的独立董事在董事会中能发挥重要作用,东亚模式的独立董事主要起约束家族大股东行为和维护中小股东权益的作用.中国上市公司积极地引入独立董事会制度,同时又保留监事会,其目的是制约一股独大的权力,但独立董事实际能发挥作用的空间很小,存在许多需要完善的体制问题.     

发挥监事会作用 加强国有企业财务监督

一、国有企业公司治理与财务监督 （一）规范的公司治理结构 规范的公司治理结构是根据权利机构、决策机构、执行机构、监督机构相互独立、权责明确、相互协调又相互制约的设置原则，设立股东会、董事会、经理层、监事会。公司治理结构体现为两层控制权的设置与行使：股东通过股东大会与董事会之间的信任委托关系形成第一层控制权；董事会与经理层之间的第二层委托代理关系。     

证券公司治理机制对其市场风险与效率的影响

本文运用中国39家证券公司数据,对公司治理机制与证券公司的市场风险和效率之间的关系进行了实证研究。研究结果显示,前三大股东持股比例与公司的经营效率正相关;董事会规模与效率负相关,且董事持股比例越高,券商越倾向于拥有更大的市场风险;独立董事比例与效率和风险承担之间的关系不显著,表明独立董事尚未充分发挥职能;总资产规模大的券商总体上拥有更高的技术效率。     

表决权争夺：中小股东不再“用脚投票”

表决权争夺是不同的公司股东组成的不同利益集团，通过争夺股东的委托表决权以获得董事会的控制权，进而达到更改管理或公司战略的目的的行为，根据传统的委托-代理理论，在现代公司制中股东与董事会存在委托一代理关系，股东大会将决定谁进入董事会，大股东推荐的董事人选当选的人较多的话，大股东就控制了董事会，从而取得了对公司的控制权，控制权的争夺，传统上一般是通过公司并购以获得多数股权而达到目的，但表决权争夺则是一种金融创新，它是争夺股东的委托表决权而不是股权的方式得到控制权的，其中向证券市场中的公司中小股东公开征集委托表决权授权书，是表决权争夺达到白热化的标志，这为中小股东积极参与企业经营管理开辟了一条新的途径，表决权争夺与公司并购都是力图控制公司，但前争夺的目的不仅是股权（尽管可能同时争夺股权），而是股票表决权，双方不再一味攀比拥有股份的多寡，可以说，这种借助第三方力量的方式更注重决策权，下面我们来看看中国证券市场发生的表决权争夺事件。     

企业剩余权力及其配置

企业是一种契约的组织形式，由于契约的不完全性产生了剩余权力，它包括剩余控制权和剩余索取权，它们共同构成了企业的所有权。剩余权力的合理配置对提高企业绩效有重要的意义，本文通过分析企业中各契约方的特征，说明了剩余控制权和剩余索取权的关系及其动态配置过程，并提出如何在经理人掌握剩余控制权的同时避免其侵害股东利益。     

浅谈监事会在公司治理中的职能定位

公司治理结构是所有权与经营权分离时形成的公司内部股东、董事与经理等之间关系基本定位.我国的公司治理结构主要包括股东大会、董事会、经理人和监事会.我国<公司法>规定监事的监管职能,但是存在着诸多问题造成监事并不能充分行使有效监督.本文首先分析公司治理结构中的监事会的内涵与职能作用,并分析其存在的缺陷,最后针对性的提出完善监事会制度的有效措施.     

大股东控制下的“隧道挖掘”问题探讨

<正>传统意义上的委托代理问题是由企业所有权和经营权相分离,股东享有剩余索取权而引发的。这种委托代理问题可以通过建立激励约束机制加以解决。随着现代企业的发展,另一种委托代理问题日益凸显,即大股东与中小股东之间的代理问题。大股东常常会利用信息、控制权等方面的天然优势,以损     

论股票期权计划及其在我国的发展前景

中国的股票市场在经历了一波火热的行情后,开始走向震荡整理阶段。这与管理层对股市泡沫的隐忧而采取一系列的直接和间接的调控措施有关。然而决定股票市场长期健康发展的一个关键因素是上市公司治理结构的完善和业绩的提高。完善公司治理成为摆在上市公司面前的一项重要任务。在这样一个背景下,增加实施股票期权等与股票市场挂钩的激励方法在国内的公司成为一种趋势,股权激励日益被各界所关注,目前,A股上市公司已近或正在启动股权激励相关方案的已达到30%左右。股票期权计划又是股权激励的一种最主要的方式。然而,股票期权是不是适合我国上市公司的方案却是值得冷静思考的一个问题。一、股票期权计划的激励效应公司制的区别于其它企业组织形式的一个最主要的特点就是,所有者和经营者的分离。以股份制公司为例,股东拥有对企业资产的所有权和索取权,拥有对公司经理人进行选择、激励和监管的权力;而经理人拥有的是企业的剩余控制权。绝大多数股东不可能亲自参与企业的管理和经营,而只是以委托的形式委托经理人代理经营公司资产。这是因为股东与经理人各自的资源优势不同,股东拥有非人力资本优势,而经理人拥有人力资本优势,双方通过合约联系在一起,发挥各自的优势创造财富。然而由于双方...     

Board and Monitoring Committee Independence

This study focuses on the composition of boards of directors and their monitoring committees (audit and compensation) for large Australian companies. For firms whose boards use a committee structure, much of the monitoring responsibility of the board is expected to rest with the independent committee members. We document a positive association between the proportion of independent directors on the full board and its monitoring committees, and a greater proportion of independent directors on both audit and compensation committees than the full board. Our hypotheses tests involve an examination of the impact of other mechanisms used to control agency conflicts on full board and committee independence, and the association between this independence and firm value. We find that full board independence is associated with low management ownership and an absence of substantial shareholders. Audit committee independence is associated with reduced monitoring by debtholders when leverage is low. While we predict a positive relationship between board and monitoring committee independence and firm value, our results do not support this conjecture.     

The Role of Dividends, Debt and Board Structure in the Governance of Family Controlled Firms

Abstract:  We investigate whether family controlled firms use dividends, debt and board structure to exacerbate or mitigate agency problems between controlling and minority shareholders in a capital market environment with high investor protection and private benefits of control. Results indicate family controlled firms employ higher dividend payout ratios, higher debt levels and lower levels of board independence compared to non-family firms. This suggests family controlled firms use either dividends or debt as a substitute for independent directors. We also find that dividends and debt are more effective governance mechanisms in mitigating the families' expropriation of minority shareholders' wealth. Independent directors are, in contrast, more effective in controlling owner-manager conflict in non-family firms.     

Managerial ownership,board monitoring and firm performance in a family‐concentrated corporate environment

Using data from Hong Kong, a market that has family‐concentrated ownership structure, we examine the relation between managerial ownership, the board of directors and firm performance. We first conduct analysis on the managerial ownership and firm performance to derive the turning points where either ‘convergence of interest’ or ‘entrenchment’ effect of managerial ownership is dominant. Based on these estimated turning points, we find that at low and high level of ownership, effective board mitigates the entrenchment effect associated with managerial ownership; at medium level of ownership, board effectiveness is less demanded. These findings suggest that managerial ownership and board monitoring are substitutes in mitigating the agency problem between managers and shareholders. We also find that effective board curbs the excessive compensation by entrenched managers to themselves at low level of managerial ownership.     

Does Board Independence Reduce the Cost of Debt?

Using the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act and the associated changes in listing standards as a natural experiment, we find that while board independence decreases the cost of debt when credit conditions are strong or leverage is low, it increases the cost of debt when credit conditions are poor or leverage is high. We also document that independent directors set corporate policies that increase firm risk. These results suggest that independent directors act in the interests of shareholders and are increasingly costly to bondholders with the intensification of the agency conflict between these two stakeholder groups.     

Director capital and corporate disclosure quality

Conventional wisdom regarding board effectiveness emphasizes the role of board composition and incentives in alleviating conflicts of interest. We argue that board capital, however, may be a more important aspect of board efficacy since directors are the highest level agents of shareholders, meet infrequently, and shareholders have limited recourse for poor decision-making. In contrast, shareholders and the SEC can sue/prosecute directors for conflicts of interest or bias. One role of the board involves determining the depth and degree of the firm’s financial disclosures. To test the idea that high capital boards seek to provide greater disclosure quality to investors, we manually collect data on director attributes and apply factor analysis to measure the networking, educational, and experience capital of the board. The results indicate that board capital is positively related to disclosure quality, with differing key attributes for inside and outside directors. These results are robust to 2SLS and difference-in-difference approaches.     

Independent directors’ board networks and controlling shareholders’ tunneling behavior

As one of the channels by which board directors build important relationships, board networks can affect the governance role of independent directors. Defining director board networks as their connections based on direct ties they establish when serving on at least one common board, this paper explores the role of the network centrality of independent directors in restraining tunneling behavior by controlling shareholders in the Chinese capital market. Our empirical evidence shows that tunneling behavior by controlling shareholders is negatively related to the network centrality of independent directors and that this relationship is stronger when non-operating fund occupation is used as the measure of tunneling. The results of our study show that board networks can help independent directors to restrain tunneling behavior by large shareholders, which plays a positive role in corporate governance.     

Who's Monitoring the Monitor? Do Outside Directors Protect Shareholders' Interests?

The corporate governance literature is rich with empirical tests of the relation between board composition and firm performance. We consider the effect of board composition on a different measure of performance, the probability a firm will be sued by shareholders. We find firms that are defendants in securities litigation have higher proportions of insiders and of gray directors and have smaller boards than a matched group of firms that are not sued, even when controlling for firm value and industry. The results suggest that boards with higher proportions of outside directors do a better job of monitoring management.     

What Are Boards For? Evidence from Closely Held Firms in Colombia

Using a large survey database on the corporate governance practices of privately held Colombian firms, we investigate why firms have boards, and how that choice and the balance of power among the board, controlling shareholders, and minority shareholders affect the trade‐offs between control, liquidity, and growth and, ultimately, firm performance. We find that the probability of having a board increases with the number of shareholders and in family firms. When the preferences of controlling and minority shareholders diverge, as with respect to capital structure and dividend policy, boards support controlling shareholders’ decisions, thereby exacerbating the agency conflict between the two groups of shareholders.     

Controlling shareholders,board structure,and firm performance: Evidence from India

We examine the prevalence and performance impact of controlling shareholders and study corporate board structures and ownership structures in 1796 Indian firms. Families (founders) are present on the boards in 63.2 (65.5) percent of the sample firms. On average, founders own over 50% of outstanding shares. In contrast to the findings of Anderson and Reeb (2003) in the U.S. context, we find that controlling shareholder board membership in Indian firms has a statistically significant negative association with Tobin's Q. Higher proportion of independent directors, higher institutional ownership or larger firm size does not appear to mitigate this relationship. Overall, board membership of controlling shareholders appears to be costly for minority shareholders.     

Stock Market Reaction to the Appointment of Outside Directors

This paper examines the UK stock market's reaction to the appointment of outside (non‐executive) board members. Tests conducted using a sample of 714 appointments reported by EXTEL between 1 July, 1993 and 31 December, 1996, indicate a strong interaction between appointee characteristics and the magnitude of the agency problem: the share price reaction to outside director appointments is significantly more favourable when board ownership is low and the appointee possesses strong ex ante monitoring incentives. In contrast, the appointment of independent and manager‐affiliated outside directors does not appear to benefit shareholders on average, even in the presence of serious agency problems.