两类公允价值变动对高管薪酬的差异影响研究——基于我国A股上市公司2007-2008数据检验

本文以A股上市公司2007-2008年数据检验两类公允价值变动对高管薪酬的差异影响。研究发现:(1)计入利润表的公允价值变动利得(损失)与高管薪酬变动显著正相关(不相关),存在"重奖轻罚"现象;(2)直接计入资本公积的公允价值变动也对高管薪酬的变动产生影响,同样存在"重奖轻罚";(3)计入利润表的公允价值变动对高管薪酬变动的影响显著大于计入资本公积的公允价值变动。研究结果表明:高管薪酬契约未能恰当利用公允价值变动信息,均源于金融资产但列报不同的两类公允价值,对高管薪酬具有差异影响。该结论支持了高管可能基于薪酬原因操纵金融资产分类的观点,并为我国2009年利润表朝向综合收益的改革提供了一些经验支持。     

高管薪酬:激励还是自利?——来自中国上市公司的证据

近年来中国上市公司的高管薪酬增长迅速并引起社会的广泛关注。本文收集了2004-2008年中国上市公司前三名高管的薪酬水平,考察高管薪酬与公司绩效、高管控制权、政府管制及代理成本之间的关系。研究发现:(1)高管薪酬仅与ROA显著正相关,但与资产获现率(经营净现金/总资产)及股票收益率没有显著的正相关关系。(2)高管的薪酬水平随着其控制权的增加而显著提高。(3)对比国有公司,非国有公司的高管更容易利用其控制权来提高自身的薪酬水平。(4)高管高薪并未有效降低公司的代理成本,反而提高了代理成本。本文的研究结果证实了我国上市公司的高管在其薪酬制定中存在明显的自利行为,且这种自利行为降低或者消除了薪酬的激励作用。     

A survey of executive compensation contracts in China’s listed companies

We analyze 228 executive compensation contracts voluntarily disclosed by Chinese listed firms and find that central-government-controlled companies disclose more information in executive compensation contracts than local-government-controlled and non-government-controlled companies. Cash-based payments are the main form of executive compensation, whereas equity-based payments are seldom used by Chinese listed companies. On average, there are no significant differences in the value of basic salaries and performance-based compensation in executive compensation contracts. But, compared with their counterparts in non-government-controlled companies, executives in government-controlled companies are given more incentive compensation. Accounting earnings are typically used in executive compensation contracts, with few firms using stock returns to evaluate their executives. However, the use of non-financial measures has increased significantly since 2007.     

Underperformance of founder-led firms: An examination of compensation contracting theories during the executive stock options backdating scandal

Using the executive stock option (ESO) backdating scandal as a backdrop, this paper examines whether compensation committees can effectively set executive compensation contracts in the presence of a founding CEO. Analyzing a sample of firms accused of backdating ESO grant dates and a control sample of non-backdating firms, we find evidence suggesting that managerial power influences the decision to backdate. Specifically, our analysis indicates the presence of a founder CEO increases the likelihood that ESOs are backdated by 22%. We further find that founder-led firms strongly underperform a matched sample of non-backdating firms. This finding contrasts a number of studies that document superior operating and stock return performance for founder-led firms.     

The Endogeneity of Managerial Compensation in Firm Valuation: A Solution

Much of the empirical literature that has examined the functionalrelationship between firm value and managerial ownership levelsassumes that managerial ownership levels are exogenous and arethe only component of managerial compensation related to firmperformance. This assumption is contrary to the theoreticaland empirical literature wherein managerial compensation isendogenously determined and includes both shares and options.Using instruments for managerial compensation and panel datato control for unobservable heterogeneity in the firm's contractingenvironment, we estimate a system of simultaneous equations.We find that firms are in equilibrium when they endogenouslyset their chief executive officer's compensation.     

公司社会声望与高管薪酬:公共服务抑或职业声誉

本文基于“隐性—显性”契约激励研究范式,探讨公司社会声望对高管薪酬的影响以及作用机制。本文选取2009—2017年间的非金融A股上市公司为样本,研究发现,拥有较高社会声望的公司,其高管显性薪酬较低。具体而言,公共地位较高的国有企业、具有较高市场声誉的民营上市公司,其高管薪酬平均而言分别比其他上市公司低4.97%和6.30%。进一步地,我们发现公司声望对我国高管显性薪酬契约存在两种作用机制:一方面,公共地位较高的国有企业,可以为高管带来较高的社会声誉和社会认可,满足了“公共服务”类高管的社会声望偏好,从而降低了显性薪酬的支付水平;另一方面,市场声誉较高的民营企业,可以为高管带来较高的职业声誉和未来职业利益,符合“以商为荣”类高管的社会声望偏好,使高管愿意接受较低的显性薪酬。本文的结论为公司声望作为一种有价值的资源,可以对高管显性薪酬形成议价能力提供了重要证据,揭示了公司声望对高管显性契约激励的影响路径;同时,为国有企业高管薪酬契约设计以及激励机制提供了一定启示。     

公司社会声望与高管薪酬:公共服务抑或职业声誉

本文基于“隐性—显性”契约激励研究范式,探讨公司社会声望对高管薪酬的影响以及作用机制。本文选取2009—2017年间的非金融A股上市公司为样本,研究发现,拥有较高社会声望的公司,其高管显性薪酬较低。具体而言,公共地位较高的国有企业、具有较高市场声誉的民营上市公司,其高管薪酬平均而言分别比其他上市公司低4.97%和6.30%。进一步地,我们发现公司声望对我国高管显性薪酬契约存在两种作用机制:一方面,公共地位较高的国有企业,可以为高管带来较高的社会声誉和社会认可,满足了“公共服务”类高管的社会声望偏好,从而降低了显性薪酬的支付水平;另一方面,市场声誉较高的民营企业,可以为高管带来较高的职业声誉和未来职业利益,符合“以商为荣”类高管的社会声望偏好,使高管愿意接受较低的显性薪酬。本文的结论为公司声望作为一种有价值的资源,可以对高管显性薪酬形成议价能力提供了重要证据,揭示了公司声望对高管显性契约激励的影响路径;同时,为国有企业高管薪酬契约设计以及激励机制提供了一定启示。     

Bankers' compensation and fair value accounting

This paper examines the role of certain fair value accounting (FVA) outcomes in compensation of US bank CEOs. The use of FVA in compensation invites an agency cost—the clawback problem—if cash compensation is based on unrealized profits that may reverse in the future. At the same time FVA may be a good measure of current managerial effort and so be cash compensated. We find evidence consistent with a positive link between CEO cash bonus and fair value (FV) valuation of trading assets, managed for short-term profit, as well as (amongst banks with limited trading exposure) a positive link between CEO pay and FV valuations of available for sale (AFS) assets. We find no evidence that trading income is incrementally compensation relevant, indicating that compensation committees avoided the clawback problem for unrealized trading gains. The paper also provides evidence on the link between FVA outcomes and equity-based pay.     

The Relationship Between Equity-Based Compensation and Managerial Risk Taking: Evidence from China

The authors analyze the impact of equity-based compensation on managerial risk-taking behavior in Chinese listed firms from January 2006 to July 2011. They find that greater risk-taking incentives lead executives to invest more in research and development (R&D) projects and less in capital expenditures. Greater managerial risk-taking incentive increases firm focus. Managerial risk-taking incentives have positive effects on firms' leverage. Overall, increasing the sensitivity of chief executive officers' portfolio value to stock return volatility helps incentivize executives to work harder, as sharing gains and losses with shareholders aligns the interests of executives and shareholders. In addition, the results indicate that state control of firms has a negative effect on R&D investment, and this suggests that state-controlled firms should take more initiative to innovate.     

COMPENSATION CONTRACTS OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS: DETERMINANTS OF PAY-PERFORMANCE SENSITIVITY

Compensation contracts of chief executive officers of large firms typically provide for a low linkage between compensation and stock performance. We test predictions of various theoretical models of managerial behavior using pay-performance sensitivity measures. We find that even though the sensitivity measures are low on average, they vary cross-sectionally, in a manner broadly consistent with predictions from the literature on efficient contracting.     

Usefulness of fair values for predicting banks’ future earnings: evidence from other comprehensive income and its components

This paper examines whether fair value adjustments included in other comprehensive income (OCI) predict future bank performance. It also examines whether the reliability of these estimates affects their predictive value. Using a sample of bank holding companies, we find that fair value adjustments included in OCI can predict earnings both 1 and 2 years ahead. However, not all fair value-related unrealized gains and losses included in OCI have similar implications. While net unrealized gains and losses on available-for-sale securities are positively associated with future earnings, net unrealized gains and losses on derivative contracts classified as cash flow hedges are negatively associated with future earnings. We also find that reliable measurement of fair values enhances predictive value. Finally, we show that fair value adjustments recorded in OCI during the 2007–2009 financial crisis predicted future profitability, contradicting criticism that fair value accounting forced banks to record excessive downward adjustments.     

Are more able CEOs getting more compensated? Evidence from the pay-for-performance sensitivity of equity-based incentives

This study investigates whether the managerial ability of a chief executive officer (CEO) is associated with the CEO's pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS) of the equity-based compensation. We predict that more talented CEOs receive a higher PPS of equity incentives. Using the managerial ability score (Demerjian, Lev, & McVay, 2012) and PPS measures of options and stocks (Core & Guay, 1999), we find that a CEO's PPS of the equity-based compensation is significantly increasing in the CEO's ability. We also find that the association between managerial ability and the PPS of stock incentives is more evident for small firms. Furthermore, our results show that high ability CEOs are associated with a steeper PPS of option incentives, especially when they are not near retirement. Together, our findings suggest that firms generally incorporate the relative efficiency factor of CEO's ability in designing the CEO's equity-based compensation contracts, and thus the cross-sectional variation in the CEO's PPS is positively influenced by the CEO's ability.Data availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.     

Does firm heterogeneity lead to differences in relative executive compensation?

Cost heterogeneity is an important source of performance disparity among firms. This heterogeneity conditions the strategic decisions that firms make in the product market and can lead to heterogeneity in the design of managerial compensation contracts. I investigate the effect of cost heterogeneity in a strategic product market environment where firms compete à la Cournot. The paper offers new predictions on how executive compensation contracts that account for relative performance must be adjusted for cost differences.     

Risk aversion,prudence, and compensation

In a standard principal-agent setting, we use a comparative approach to study the incentives provided by different types of compensation contracts, and their valuation by managers with utility function u who are risk averse (u″<0) and prudent (u″′>0). We show that concave contracts tend to provide more incentives to risk averse managers, while convex contracts tend to be more valued by prudent managers. This is because concave contracts concentrate incentives where the marginal utility of risk averse managers is highest, while convex contracts protect against downside risk. Thus, managerial prudence can contribute to explain the prevalence of stock-options in executive compensation. However, convex contracts are not optimal when the principal is sufficiently prudent relative to the manager.     

Australia’s ‘two-strikes’ rule and the pay-performance link: Are shareholders judicious?

To improve accountability of executive compensation, Australia introduced the ‘say-on-pay’ legislation in 2011, which is widely known as the ‘two-strikes’ rule. We investigate the consequences of this new rule for the pay-performance link in Australian firms. Employing a matched-pair design, we find that pay changes of the chief executive officer and the key management personnel were not significantly positively related to the stock returns of the firms that registered a ‘first strike’ in 2011 under the ‘two-strikes’ rule. However, the relations improved significantly in 2012. Our results also suggest that the shareholders of the ‘first-strike’ firms may have been over-enthusiastic about their voting power in 2011 but exercised this power more judiciously in 2012. Our findings provide important insights for the global debate on governance of executive compensation.     

Executive stock-based compensation and firms’ cash payout: the role of shareholders’ tax-related payout preferences

We hypothesize that the structure of executive stock-based compensation helps to align managers’ payout choices with shareholders’ tax-related payout preferences. Specifically, stock options, which are not dividend-protected, can deter self-interested executives from using dividends as a form of payout. In contrast, restricted stock, which is dividend-protected, is more likely to induce the use of dividends. Relatedly, shareholders’ preferences for dividends, which are taxed as ordinary income, can depend on the income tax consequences of dividends relative to those of long-term capital gains. To test our hypothesis, we investigate whether the exogenous changes in shareholders’ tax-related payout preferences following the 2003 dividend tax rate reduction result in predictable shifts in executive stock-based compensation and in managers’ payout choices. Consistent with our prediction, we find a positive relation between the increased use of dividends in firms’ payouts and the increased (decreased) use of restricted stock (stock options) in executive compensation, particularly for firms with a greater percentage ownership by individual investors and with lower costs associated with modifying the structure of their compensation plans. Our investigation of the role of shareholders’ tax-related payout preferences in the design of executive stock-based compensation extends the prior literature that has largely focused on the role of incentive contracts in inducing managerial effort, risk taking, and retention.     

The economics of earnings manipulation and managerial compensation

This article examines managerial compensation in an environment where managers may take a hidden action that affects the actual earnings of the firm. When realized, these earnings constitute hidden information that is privately observed by the manager, who may expend resources to generate an inflated earnings report. We characterize the optimal managerial compensation contract in this setting, and demonstrate that contracts contingent on reported earnings cannot provide managers with the incentive both to maximize profits and to report those profits honestly. As a result, some degree of earnings management must be tolerated as a necessary part of an efficient agreement.     

CEO Incentives,Relationship Lending,and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing

We investigate how lending relationships attenuate the conflict of interest between creditors and shareholders that arises from chief executive officer (CEO) compensation contracts. We find that lending relationships mitigate the influence of CEO risk‐taking incentives on loan spreads, especially for informationally opaque firms. In addition, lending relationships attenuate the impact of CEO risk‐taking incentives on maturity and collateral requirements. This article highlights the importance of bank monitoring through lending relationships to mitigate managerial risk‐shifting activities that arise from equity incentives.     

How does the executive pay gap influence audit fees? The roles of R&D investment and institutional ownership

Using a sample of US firms from 2003–2014, this study examines how the executive pay gap affects audit fees for firms with different levels of R&D investment and institutional ownership. Consistent with managerial power theory, we find that the executive pay gap is positively associated with audit fees, and that the positive association is attenuated by intense R&D investment and higher institutional ownership. We also find that the executive pay gap more strongly affects audit fees after the passage of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act and the PCAOB's 2012 call to identify the audit risk related to executive incentive compensation. Additional analyses show that the moderating effects of R&D investment and institutional ownership on the pay gap–audit fees association are not conditional on auditor tenure, but the moderating effect of institutional ownership is stronger for firms hiring specialist auditors. Collectively, our findings suggest that auditors consider the business context, such as innovation initiative and external monitoring, when assessing audit risk related to the executive pay gap.     

公允价值计量与管理层薪酬契约

本文以2007、2008年持有公允价值变动损益的A股上市公司为样本,分析了公允价值收益、公允价值损失与管理层薪酬之间的敏感系数。研究结果表明,A股上市公司存在着对公允价值变动损益的"重奖轻罚"现象。"重奖轻罚"现象表明我国上市公司激励有效而约束乏力的薪酬不对称特征也存在于盈余分项目层面,这将会助长管理层的机会主义行为,放大企业风险。本文还发现,公允价值"持有收益"并不必然增加股东财富,委托人不能辨别新增财富的可实现性与现实性的差异,也不能辨别市场优势地位与管理层努力程度对业绩的影响,常见的公司治理机制在该问题上并没有发挥应有的控制作用,表明中国的公司治理机制仍有待完善。