董事会的独立性是否影响公司绩效?

在董事会和公司绩效的研究框架内,代理理论和乘员理论就独立董事比例的绩效后果产生了分歧,前者认为独立董事通过降低代理成本促进绩效,后者则认为董事会效率会因独立董事比例的提高而下降。利用中国资本市场的数据,本文系统地检验了董事会独立性和公司绩效的关系,为这一争议提供了证据。研究发现,独立董事比例和公司绩效显著正相关,这种相关性在控制内生性问题后仍然成立,并且发现当大股东缺乏制衡时,独立董事比例对公司绩效的促进作用会显著降低,这一结果表明代理理论对中国资本市场的公司治理更具解释力。我们还进一步就独立董事的背景和公司绩效的关系进行了检验,研究发现独立董事的声誉能够显著地促进公司绩效,而其行业专长、政治关系以及经济管理背景与公司绩效并无相关性。

Does Independence of the Board Affect Firm Performance?

This paper follows the controversy between the agency theory and the stewardship theory in frameworks of boards of directors and corporate performance. Proponents of the agency theory argue that independent directors may impair agency cost and improve firm performance. Oppositely, independent directors will reduce board's efficiency and alleviate companies' financial achievements in views of the stewardship theory. We systematically examine the link between board's independence and firm performance. We find that proportion of independent directors to all directors is positively related to companies' financial performance in both OLS and 2SLS regressions, furthermore, this relation is weaker in companies with poor shareholders' balance and checks than those of normal firms. The results indicate that agency theory is suitable for China's capital market. We also find that reputation of independent directors is benefit to corporate profits. However, we are unable to detect any relationship between performance and independent directors' other characters, such as industrial expertise, political connection and economics and management career.