工薪所得税筹划与企业创新

本文结合我国工薪所得税税负较重及实施创新驱动发展战略的现实背景,探讨工薪所得税筹划是否以及如何对企业创新产生影响。研究发现:(1)工薪所得税筹划程度与企业创新显著正相关;(2)员工应税压力越大,二者正相关关系越显著,且2011年个人所得税税制改革会抑制二者之间的正向关系,表明纳税筹划主要通过降低工薪税负的不利影响,强化薪酬的激励效应,进而促进企业创新;(3)当公司为国有企业或公司处在税收征管强度较大的地区时,二者的正向关系更强;(4)当企业人均薪酬波动较大时,二者的正向关系削弱;(5)当创新员工更有可能是避税行为的受益者时,二者的正相关关系更强。本研究对于降低工薪阶层税负,以及如何提高企业创新意愿,实现创新驱动发展战略,具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

Incentive effects of stock purchase plans

Financial economists are interested in whether alternative compensation plans are adopted primarily for tax, incentive or signaling reasons. As most compensation plans have tax implications, examining for other effects is difficult. In this paper we examine the stock market reaction to employee stock purchase plans which are ‘non-tax advantageous’ and adopted for incentive/signaling reasons. The results suggest that (1) equity-based compensation schemes have a positive effect on shareholder wealth for reasons other than tax reduction, (2) a motive for adopting these plans is to align managerial and shareholder interests, and (3) equity ownership motivates key executives more than subordinate employees.     

CEO investment of deferred compensation plans and firm performance

We study how US chief executive officers (CEOs) invest their deferred compensation plans depending on the firm's profitability. By looking at the correlation between the CEO's return on these plans and the firm's stock return, we show that deferred compensation is to a large extent invested in the company equity in good times and divested from it in bad times. The divestment from company equity in bad times arguably reflects CEOs' incentive to abandon the firm and to invest in alternative instruments to preserve the value of their deferred compensation plans. This result suggests that the incentive alignment effects of deferred compensation crucially depend on the firm's health status.     

A Model of Equity Based Compensation with Tax

In this paper, we develop a two‐stage continuous time model of employee stock option (ESO) valuation under different tax regimes. We show that tax rules can have significant effects on ESO exercise behavior. In addition, we find that incentive stock options (ISO) are the optimal form of compensation for all levels of employees in the UK. In the US, restricted stock plans are preferred, and tax breaks offered by incentive schemes are only beneficial to employees with high liquid wealth (or small option holdings relative to wealth) or low risk aversion. We also analyze 83b elections for restricted stock plans in the US and find that making an election is a sub‐optimal decision for both the employee and the firm.     

Corporate tax avoidance and high-powered incentives

This paper analyzes the links between corporate tax avoidance and the growth of high-powered incentives for managers. A simple model demonstrates the role of feedback effects between tax sheltering and managerial diversion in determining how high-powered incentives influence tax sheltering decisions. A novel measure of corporate tax avoidance (the component of the book-tax gap not attributable to accounting accruals) allows for an investigation of the link between tax avoidance and incentive compensation. Increases in incentive compensation tend to reduce the level of tax sheltering, in a manner consistent with a complementary relationship between diversion and sheltering. In addition, this negative effect is driven primarily by firms with relatively weak governance arrangements, confirming a central prediction of the model. These results can help explain the growing cross-sectional variation among firms in their levels of tax avoidance, the undersheltering puzzle, and why large book-tax gaps are associated with subsequent negative abnormal returns.     

Taxes and executive stock options

In the Sixties, the qualified stock option was the predominant form of long-term incentive compensation contract for major industrial firms in the U.S. In the early Seventies these same firms replaced their tax-qualified stock option plans with non-qualified sttock options and later modified these plans to include a variety of new contingent compensation arrangements, some of which were based on accounting numbers instead of stock prices. This paper develops the hypothesis that tax considerations play an important role in explaining the form of compensation contracts. The pattern and timing of changes in the compensation plans of the top 100 industrial firms provides evidence consistent with the tax hypothesis.     

The impact of tax law uncertainty on the development of the Sarbanes-Oxley auditor independence rules with regard to tax shelters

The paper examines the impact of tax rule uncertainty on the development of the Sarbanes-Oxley auditor independence rules. We show that the inability of Congress to articulate a concise and agreed-upon tax shelter definition forced the SEC to adopt their own definition that incorporates two characteristics common to most tax shelters: contingent fee arrangements and confidentiality. We also consider whether this definition eliminates the subjectivity in the tax shelter identification process because it reinstates the significant purpose standard (used for tax enforcement purposes) to assist auditors (and their public company clients) identify tax shelter transactions. We conclude that the new definition has reduced the incentive of auditors to provide tax related services to their public company clients.     

Top Management Incentives and Corporate Performance

There is little agreement about either the effect of executive compensation on corporate performance or the best way to measure the strength of executive incentives. With little guidance from academic research, managers and directors continue to rely heavily on the percentage of pay "at risk" as a proxy for incentive strength.
Starting with the premise that managers, like investors, are motivated by prospective changes in their wealth, this article presents a measure of incentive strength called "wealth leverage" that reflects the sensitivity of an executive's company-related wealth—total stock and option holdings plus the present value of expected future compensation, including future salary, bonus and stock compensation—to changes in shareholder wealth. After estimating top management's wealth leverage at 702 companies, the authors conclude that: 1) the median company has significant wealth leverage; 2) almost all corporate wealth leverage comes from their accumulated stock and option holdings, not from current compensation; and 3) companies with higher wealth leverage significantly outperform their industry competitors.     

控股股东股权质押与员工持股计划“工具化”——基于A股上市公司的实证研究

自2014年《关于上市公司实施员工持股计划试点的指导意见》颁布以来,受到资本市场的广泛关注和支持,实施员工持股计划的公司逐渐增加。与此同时,控股股东股权质押可能引起的控制权转移风险也成为需要重点关注的问题。那么,有质押的控股股东是否会策略性地利用员工持股计划来缓解风险？本文利用2013—2018年A股上市公司的样本,考察控股股东质押对员工持股计划的影响。研究发现:前期控股股东有股权质押、质押率越高的公司随后推行员工持股计划的可能性越大,该效应随着控制权转移风险的提高而增大;控股股东股权质押的员工持股计划进行短期市值管理是有效的,但并未显著提升公司长期价值,提示控股股东存在借其进行内部人利益绑定和市值管理的动机;进一步研究表明,公司内部治理机制对控股股东股权质押下推行员工持股计划的效果有限。     

The Effect of Taxes on Corporate Financing Decisions: Evidence from a Panel of Italian Firms

This paper provides additional evidence on the relationship between corporate taxes and debt using panel data on Italian companies. The panel covers 1054 companies for the years 1982–1994.The paper follows the Graham-Shevlin methodology for calculating company specific marginal tax rates (MTR) relying on the non-linearity of corporate tax schedules resulting from company losses and the ensuing tax provisions (carry-forward and backward rules). In the period covered by the panel there were in Italy two taxes on corporate income (IRPEG and ILOR), with different loss carry-forward rules, whose statutory tax rates and tax bases changed several times. For these reasons the simulated MTRs display both cross-sectional and time-series variation.The paper tests whether taxes encourage the use of debt by analysing incremental financing decisions. In order to cope with the endogeneity of the MTR the paper considers two different specifications. The first uses the lagged value of the simulated MTR. The second employs the estimate of before-financing MTR proposed by Graham et al. (1998). Significant cross-sectional tax effects are identified under both specifications whereas time-series variation cannot be identified if due account is taken of firm-fixed tax effects.The paper also investigates whether personal taxes affect corporate financing decisions. The MTR may either overstate or understate the fiscal benefit of debt financing according to whether, at the personal level, interest income is taxed at a rate that is higher or lower than the tax rate on returns from common stocks. Differences in the dividend-payout ratio across companies and several reforms in interest, dividend and capital gains taxation provide sufficient cross-section and time-series variations to identify the effect of personal taxes on debt usage.     

有效预警上市公司违规的递延所得税异动指标和人工智能模型

2000-2017年,3434家A股上市公司样本中的47.79%至少有一次违规记录,每年平均有17%的公司违规,而监管机构平均需要2.7年查证并通告违规行为。我们用当年数据构建递延所得税异动指标,可有效预判违规,并发现监管机构未能识别这一指标的警示作用,实际激励了违规公司通过操纵递延所得税提高财务指标以规避稽查。进一步构建决策树模型,对违规事件实现样本外精准判别。本文揭示了A股公司大面积违规而稽查过程冗长迟缓这一重要现象,并分析了违规机制,指出了所得税数据在稽查违规中可以发挥的预警作用,为监管者和投资者提供有效预警上市公司违规行为的新指标和方法。     

有效预警上市公司违规的递延所得税异动指标和人工智能模型

2000-2017年,3434家A股上市公司样本中的47.79%至少有一次违规记录,每年平均有17%的公司违规,而监管机构平均需要2.7年查证并通告违规行为。我们用当年数据构建递延所得税异动指标,可有效预判违规,并发现监管机构未能识别这一指标的警示作用,实际激励了违规公司通过操纵递延所得税提高财务指标以规避稽查。进一步构建决策树模型,对违规事件实现样本外精准判别。本文揭示了A股公司大面积违规而稽查过程冗长迟缓这一重要现象,并分析了违规机制,指出了所得税数据在稽查违规中可以发挥的预警作用,为监管者和投资者提供有效预警上市公司违规行为的新指标和方法。     

Private equity managers’ fees: estimation and sensitivity analysis using Monte Carlo simulation

Private equity managers’ compensation is a particularly problematic area in terms of its tax treatment in the United States and some European countries. This problem originates from the difficulty of defining the particular forms of incentive and therefore their estimated fair value. Based on the literature, carried interest, which is one of the most common profit-sharing arrangements observed in practice, may be considered as an option characterized by several constraints. The use of classical option-pricing models is inappropriate for taking all these constraints into account. The contribution of this paper is to propose a suitable model to estimate the expected compensation of fund managers and to test the effect of fund characteristics and profit-sharing rules on its fair value. We use the Monte Carlo simulation model and take into account the non-marketability criteria of the carried interest. A sensitivity analysis is performed in order to show the evolution of the carried interest value. The results importantly show the sharp differences between carried interest distributed in the case of venture capital and that in the case of buyout funds and show the importance of the claw-back clause for “deal by deal funds”.     

非高管股权激励与企业创新:公平理论视角

股权激励管理办法允许上市公司通过股权激励计划对部分非高管员工进行股权激励,但设定激励对象等方面的有关规定对企业的影响却鲜有研究关注。本文从公平理论视角分析我国非高管员工股权激励对上市公司创新的影响,并依据中国上市公司股权激励计划与专利数据实证检验了非高管员工股权激励有效性假说与不公平假说。研究发现,总体上我国股权激励计划能够显著促进企业创新,但非激励员工因薪酬不公平而产生的消极行为在一定程度上削弱了股权激励计划的激励效果。具体而言,在国有控股上市公司以及激励与非激励员工收入差距小的上市公司中,非高管股权激励弱化企业创新的影响明显小于其他公司;而在非高管员工覆盖比例较高的公司中,非高管股权激励计划弱化企业创新的影响不存在。因此适当提高员工股权激励覆盖的范围可以减少激励员工与非激励员工之间因激励错配导致的薪酬不公平问题,有助于提升我国上市公司股权激励计划的创新激励效果。     

Additional Evidence on the Association Between Director Stock Ownership and Incentive Compensation

Governance scholars argue that outside directors have little incentive to monitor managers when their equity stake in the firm is not significant. A sample with a substantial level of outside director shareholdings is examined and a negative relationship between incentive compensation and outside director stock ownership is found. While firms pay higher incentive compensation when they have greater investment opportunities, the compensation contains excess pay due to ineffective corporate governance. Overall, the results suggest more effective corporate governance and lower incentive compensation when outside director stock ownership is higher.     

The impact of the market portfolio on the valuation,incentives and optimality of executive stock options

This paper examines the effect on valuation and incentives of allowing executives receiving options to trade on the market portfolio. We propose a continuous time utility maximization model to value stock and option compensation from the executive's perspective. The executive may invest non-option wealth in the market and riskless asset but not in the company stock itself, leaving them subject to firm-specific risk for incentive?purposes. Since the executive is risk averse, this unhedgeable firm risk leads them to place less value on the options than their cost to the company.

By distinguishing between these two types of risks, we are able to examine the effect of stock volatility, firm-specific risk and market risk on the value to the executive. In particular, options do not give incentive to increase total risk, but rather to increase the proportion of market relative to firm-specific risk, so executives prefer high beta companies. The paper also examines the relationship between risk and incentives, and finds firm-specific risk decreases incentives whilst market risk may decrease incentives depending on other parameters. The model supports the use of stock rather than options if the company can adjust cash pay when granting stock-based compensation.     

股票期权激励与公司绩效关系的实证研究--基于我国制造业上市公司2006-2011年的经验数据

我国的股票期权激励制度在2006年开始正式实施,已有上百家上市公司实施了股票期权,但是对于股票期权在中国上市公司业绩提升中的实践效果缺乏相关实证研究。本文运用2006-2011年我国制造业上市公司的经验数据,建立了面板数据模型,对这一问题进行实证研究。研究发现上市公司股票期权激励效果明显,确实提高了企业绩效。     

股市波动对基金管理费报酬的影响研究——基于中介效应的分析

利用中介效应分析方法检验了理论假设:股市波动对基金管理费报酬有积极的影响,基金业绩在股市波动对基金管理费报酬的影响中存在正的中介效应,即基金有能力在股市波动中发掘机会来提高业绩,从而提高管理费报酬。实证结果表明,在没有增加基金业绩情况下,股市波动对基金管理费报酬具有积极影响,此结论从股市波动的视角证明了基金管理费激励机制并不是激励相容的。根据实证结果,可以从基金类型多样化、扩大管理费率范围和加强投资者教育等三个方面完善基金管理费激励机制。     

The Demise of the Mutual Organizational Form: An Investigation of the Life Insurance Industry

We investigate the role of organizational structure in financial services markets by examining the U.S. life insurance industry. Traditionally, stock and mutual life insurers were equally represented, but now the industry is mainly composed of stock firms. We find operational efficiency, access to capital, and tax savings are important determinants for this shift. The incentive to demutualize differs by the type of conversion: full demutualization is chosen for efficiency and access to capital reasons and partial conversion, using a mutual holding company, is chosen for tax savings. Firm operational efficiency improves after conversion. We also find the efficiency of the stock organizational form dominates that of the mutual structure during our sample period, 1995 to 2004.     

The Growing Executive Compensation Advantage of Private Versus Public Companies

Private companies have a natural governance advantage over public companies—one that stems mainly from the presence on their boards of their largest owners. This governance advantage is reflected in the greater effectiveness of private company executive pay plans in balancing the goals of management retention and incentive alignment against cost. Private company investor‐directors are more likely to make these tradeoffs efficiently because they have both a much stronger interest in outcomes than public company directors and more company‐specific knowledge than public company investors. Furthermore, private company boards do not have to contend with the external scrutiny of CEO pay and the growing number of constraints on compensation that are now faced by the directors of public companies. Such constraints focus almost entirely on one dimension of compensation governance—cost—in the belief that such constraints are required to limit the ability of directors to overpay their CEOs. In practice, any element of compensation can serve to improve retention or alignment, as well as being potentially costly to shareholders. Furthermore, any proscribed compensation element can be “worked around” by plan designers, provided the company is willing to deal with the complexity. For this reason, rules intended to deter excessive CEO pay are now effectively forcing even well‐intentioned public company boards to adopt suboptimal or overly complex compensation plans, while doing little to prevent “captured” boards from overpaying CEOs. As a result, it is increasingly difficult for public companies to put in place the kinds of simple, powerful, and efficient incentive plans that are typically seen at private companies—plans that often feature bonuses funded by an uncapped share of profit growth, or upfront “mega‐grants” of stock options with service‐based vesting.