企业特征、高管薪酬结构与企业绩效

利用2005—2010年我国沪深两市A股非金融保险行业1654家上市公司的高管年度薪酬数据,结合企业特征,对不同类型企业的高管薪酬结构与企业绩效的关系进行了实证研究,细化锦标赛理论和行为理论在不同类型企业中可能形成的差异化实施效应。结果显示:我国不同类型的企业都比较适宜采用锦标赛理论制定高管薪酬激励政策,竞争性的高管薪酬结构对于提升企业绩效具有正面作用,均等化高管薪酬结构不利于企业的价值创造;相对于民营企业、小规模企业、低成长企业而言,我国国有企业、大规模企业、高成长企业更宜采用锦标赛理论设计企业高管薪酬结构。因此我国不宜对非金融保险行业国有企业的高管薪酬进行过度均等化的管制,否则会负面影响企业绩效提升和企业价值创造。     

Executive compensation in government-linked companies: evidence from Malaysia

The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics of executive pay, equity ownership incentives and pay–performance relationship in government-controlled firms. Data were hand-collected from the annual reports of 179 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia. The results show that executive pay is lower in government-linked companies. Positive pay–performance relationship is also not evident for this category of firms, which indicates that their executives were largely guaranteed with certain level of pay irrespective of performance. The level of equity ownership incentives provides the executives in government-controlled firms with very little incentive to produce effort that can improve firm performance. Overall, our findings are consistent with the inefficient pay hypothesis developed in this study.     

Determinants and value relevance of UK CEO pay slice

This paper studies the CEO pay slice (CPS) of UK listed firms during the period 2003 to 2009. We investigate the determinants of CPS. We study the links between CPS and measures of firm performance. We find that firms with higher levels of corporate governance ratings and those with more independent boards tend to have higher CPS. In addition, we find that CEOs are more likely to receive lower compensation when they chair the board and when they work in firms with large board size. We also find that higher CPS is positively associated with firm performance after controlling for the firm-specific characteristics and corporate governance variables. We get compatible results when we examine the association between equity-based CPS and firm performance. Our results remain robust to alternative accounting measures of firm performance. Our results suggest that high UK CPS levels do indeed reflect top managerial talent rather than managerial power.     

The Determinants of Firm Performance and Bribery: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

This paper uses ordinary least squares with firm effects and Probit regression models to investigate the determinants of firm performance and the likelihood of firms to pay bribes. Results for the manufacturing firms in Nigeria show that skilled workforce, exports, foreign ownership and capital investment influence firm performance. Conversely, poor electricity delivery and difficulty obtaining finance impede firm performance. Total sales and time spent dealing with government regulations increase the likelihood of firms to pay bribes. Surprisingly, foreign firms are as much likely to pay bribes as domestic firms. Policy implications from the findings are important considering that the manufacturing sector assumes an important role in the Lewis theory of economic development.     

On the irrelevance of insider trading for managerial compensation

We examine changes in the compensation of CEOs of German firms after the prohibition of insider trading (IT) in 1994 to test whether IT is a relevant compensation device. While we find that the performance elasticity of explicit CEO pay slightly increases subsequent to the IT law adoption for non-financial firms indicating an incentive-substitution effect, the overall change in levels seems modest. We explore the hypothesis that compensation for forgone IT profits in general is small because typically, firms lack at least one of the two necessary conditions for profitable IT: the existence of a liquid stock market imposing low costs of transactions and the presence of a small number of co-insiders, preventing the information rent to be competed away. Based on a difference-in-difference estimation, we indeed find that explicit pay increases more strongly for intensely traded firms and decreases for non-financial firms and insurance companies with a higher number of co-insiders. The combined effect is relatively small except for firms with the most liquid shares.     

Does export and productivity growth linkage exist? Evidence from the Indian manufacturing industry

This paper examines the interrelation between exporting and productivity performance by using a representative sample of Indian manufacturing firms over the period 1994–2006. Specifically, we attempt to test the empirical validity of the learning‐by‐exporting and the self‐selection hypotheses for our sample firms. In order to investigate the linkage, in the first step, we test for causality between TFP and export intensity of firms. Although overall results are rather mixed and provide some support for both hypotheses, still the empirical results are more favorable for the self‐selection behavior of firms. In the next stage, we attempt to provide evidence on export and productivity linkage that occurs during various phases of transition in the export market. Our results suggest that entering in the export market does not improve productivity performance. However, the decision to exit from the export market does have an adverse effect on the productivity. In addition, our results indicate the presence of a high sunk cost of exporting coupled with perhaps lesser information about foreign markets. Finally, our results also lend some support to the significant role of in‐house research activities and economies of scale in firms' productivity performance.     

Voluntary zero-dividend paying firms: characteristics and performance

We investigate the characteristics of ‘voluntary zero dividend paying’ firms and their subsequent performance. We define NDR_HP (no dividends or repurchases, with high profitability) firms as those with profits above the industry median and yet pay out zero dividends (including share repurchases). Signalling, agency, residual dividend, and life cycle theories explain firm characteristics and dividend payouts, to which we add the novel variables CEO overconfidence and market competition. We discover that growth opportunity, capital expenditure, and CEO overconfidence are positively related to NDR_HP. In addition, we find that the NDR_HP group outperforms all other groups in terms of future performance.     

The effect of managerial ability on dividend policy: how do talented managers view dividend payouts?

We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani’s (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, that is, variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24 000 observations across over 20 years (1989–2011), our results show that firms with more talented executives are more likely to pay dividends and, among firms that pay dividends, pay significantly larger dividends. A rise in managerial ability by one SD raises the propensity to pay dividends by 27% and, for firms that pay dividends, increases dividend payouts by 29%. Our results are consistent with the notion that talented managers, confident in their ability to keep the firm profitable, are more willing to pay larger dividends because they are less concerned about having to reduce dividends in the future. Further analysis shows that our results are not likely vulnerable to endogeneity.     

高管团队内薪酬差距、公司绩效和治理结构

公司高管团队内薪酬差距主要指CEO薪酬水平同其他高层管理人员之间的薪酬数额的差别。本文对我国上市公司内高层管理人员薪酬差距和公司未来绩效之间关系进行了检验 ,发现二者之间具有显著的正向关系 ,大薪酬差距可以提升公司绩效。该结果支持薪酬激励的锦标赛理论而不是行为理论。本文还发现 ,影响我国公司薪酬差距的主要因素不是公司外部市场环境因素和企业自身经营运作上的特点 ,而是公司治理结构。本文认为 ,我国上市公司应适当提高薪酬差距以维持足够的锦标赛激励能量 ,而提高薪酬差距的主要出路在于进行治理结构改革。     

Contracts and asymmetric information in the theory of the firm

This paper extends the Coase notation of firms as intermediaries between consumers and input owners to incorporate asymmetric information. We show that in some cases it is optimal for consumers to pay a fixed price for a product and to ignore how the firm operates and the profit that it makes. If firms have private information that consumers cannot cheaply obtain, however, we demonstrate that the optimal contract may require constraints on firms internal operations and profits. Our work provides conditions under which cost-plus contracts are optimal, and demonstrates when nonprofit firms are the preferred organization structure.     

四大会计师事务所能提供高质量的审计服务吗?———基于高管薪酬契约有效性的经验证据

以财务报告为主体的财务信息可在公司治理中发挥重要作用.高质量的审计服务能够提高薪酬—业绩的敏感性,从而保证薪酬契约的达成和实现.本文以沪深两市2002年-2009年度上市公司为研究样本,分析外部审计治理效应对薪酬—业绩敏感度的影响,考察四大会计师事务所审计过的上市公司是否具有更高的薪酬—业绩敏感度.通过全样本、转换样本以及HECKMAN自选择偏误校正等方法发现：在薪酬—业绩敏感度上,四大会计师事务所与非四大会计师事务所审计过的上市公司并不存在显著差异,国内六大会计师事务所审计过的上市公司具有更高的薪酬—业绩敏感度.     

The use of stock-based pay for sorting: an empirical analysis of compensation for new CEOs

Examining stock-based compensation for newly hired CEOs, this article finds that the sensitivity of stock-based pay to performance is higher for new economy, young and volatile firms. Of the components of stock-based pay, it is option grants that generate such variation across firms. It also finds that this cross-firm variation in pay-performance sensitivity is more pronounced for the CEO's first year in office. These findings support the view that firms use stock-based pay to new CEOs for sorting.     

Regulation,renegotiation and capital structure: theory and evidence from Latin American transport concessions

We examine the capital structure of regulated infrastructure firms. We develop a model showing that leverage, the ratio of liabilities to assets, is lower under high-powered regulation and that firms operating under high-powered regulation make proportionally larger reductions in leverage when the cost of debt increases. We test the predictions of the model using an original panel dataset of 124 transport concessions in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru over 1992–2011. For each concession we have data on the regulatory regime, annual financial performance and contract renegotiations. We begin by demonstrating that, although pervasive, contract renegotiations do not fundamentally alter the regulatory regime. Importantly, firms are not systematically able to renegotiate when in financial difficulty, implying that price cap contracts remain high-powered in practice. We use this result for our main empirical work, where we find broad support for our theoretical predictions: when the cost of debt increases, firms operating under high-powered regulation make proportionally larger reductions in leverage.     

COMPETITIVE SEARCH,EFFICIENCY, AND MULTIWORKER FIRMS*

I study competitive search equilibrium in an environment where firms operate a decreasing‐returns production technology and hire multiple workers simultaneously. Firms post wages, possibly several of them. The equilibrium can feature wage dispersion even though all firms and workers are ex ante identical. Unlike the benchmark where firms hire a single worker, hiring is constrained inefficient. Efficiency requires that firms commit to the number of hires, pay all applicants, or pay wages that depend on the number of applicants. Under wage‐posting, the inefficiency is highest at intermediate levels of labor market tightness.     

DECISION TO INVEST ABROAD: THE CASE OF SOUTH KOREAN MULTINATIONALS

Recent firm‐based empirical studies examine whether firms serving foreign markets either through exports or foreign direct investment (FDI) are more efficient than their domestically‐oriented counterparts. The purpose of the present paper is to study the link between performance of multinational firms and the choice to participate in foreign investment. In so doing, this paper explicitly differentiates exports and FDI decisions. Using firm‐level data for large South Korean manufacturing firms, I provide evidence that the premium for FDI is huge compared to exports, and that good firms undertake FDI. Studying performance across firms, I find that firms that engage in FDI outperform other firms in the future in all possible dimensions; they are larger, pay higher wages, and are also more productive. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that good firms self‐select to engage in FDI. I also find clear evidence that past FDI experience has a strong positive effect on the probability of current investment abroad. This implies that the sunk cost involved in FDI plays a role in current decisions to undertake FDI.     

Protecting Strategic Knowledge: Insights from Collaborative Agreements in the Aerospace Sector

This paper explores the dilemma that firms face with respect to knowledge sharing in strategic alliances. On the one hand, alliance success is associated with high levels of interaction and co-operation between partners. On the other hand, full and open co-operation exposes a firm's distinctive knowledge and skills and makes it vulnerable to opportunistic moves by alliance partners. Hence firms experience a fundamental paradox: to gain the greatest benefits they must exchange information and knowledge with external parties yet, at the same time, they must protect themselves against knowledge appropriation. This dilemma is particularly acute in the aerospace sector where political imperatives strongly influence partner choice and collaborators are often strong rivals in other contexts. In this paper we use data drawn from four collaborative agreements in the aerospace sector to explore the ways in which a focal firm has sought to protect its strategic knowledge and manage knowledge flows in alliance relationships. We find that existing theoretical lenses provide valuable but partial insights into the question of knowledge appropriation in alliances and offer limited guidance to managers charged with making alliances work. We suggest that some rich insights can be gained by focusing on the overlaps and interstices between existing theories and that greater exploration of the everyday working practices in alliances may offer a useful starting point for improved theorising.     

Do Foreign Experts Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms?

While most countries welcome (and some even subsidize) high‐skilled immigrants, there is very limited evidence of their importance for domestic firms. To guide our empirical analysis, we first set up a simple theoretical model to show how foreign experts can affect the productivity and wages of domestic firms. Using matched worker–firm data from Denmark and a matching difference‐in‐differences approach, we then find that firms that hire foreign experts instead of domestic experts become more productive, in the sense that they pay higher wages to high‐skilled co‐workers.     

Wage–vacancy contracts and multiplicity of equilibria in a directed search model of the labour market

This paper studies a directed search model of the labour market, which is standard in all aspects except two. First, we allow firms to post wage–vacancy contracts advertising the number of workers they would pay as well as the payment all will receive. Second, we consider two cases: one where workers are risk neutral and one where workers are risk averse, both in finite and large economies. Our paper shows that when firms post wage–vacancy contracts, whether workers are modelled as risk neutral or risk averse matters: the types of symmetric equilibria and the nature of multiplicity of equilibria are different. Somewhat surprisingly, when there are finite numbers of risk‐neutral workers and firms, we obtain a finite number of symmetric equilibria, but when workers are risk averse, we obtain a continuum of equilibria. Furthermore, our paper sounds a cautionary note on using large economies as an approximation of finite economies: when workers are risk neutral, the nature of equilibrium is preserved going from a finite to a large economy, but the nature of equilibrium is different when workers are risk averse.     

On the joint effect of technological and management innovations on performance: increasing or diminishing returns?

Most studies on innovation are aimed at covering technological innovation, neglecting other modes of innovation based on non-technological drivers. The latter, referred to as management innovation, consists of the implementation of new management practices, processes or organisational tasks. This work advances knowledge on the topic by exploring the joint effect of simultaneously introducing technological and management innovations on performance. Based on an analysis of 12,563 Spanish firms drawn from CIS data, our findings suggest that firms frequently pursue the simultaneous or joint introduction of both technological and management innovations and that integration impacts positively on a firm’s performance, evidencing an inverted U-shape that suggest positive but diminishing returns. A theoretical framework using the capability-based view embraces the emerging conversation on management innovation issues and its relationship with the well-researched technological one.     

Founders versus non-founders in large companies: financial incentives and the call for regulation

This paper is intended to question some of the premises in the ever increasing calls to regulate executive pay. We focus on founders, and extend Shleifer and Vishny’s (1989, Journal of Political Economy, 94, 461–488) manager-specific investments model by explicitly modeling managerial effort and pay performance sensitivity. Tests of this model on a data set of large companies, controlling for the endogeneity of managerial compensation, indicate that founders tend to be less responsive to performance incentives and generally more entrenched. At the same time, founders’ led firms are more valuable, supporting our predictions. This suggests that for founders, regulation of compensation may not be very effective.