儒家文化氛围能抑制国有企业高管攫取私有收益吗——基于明清进士数据的实证研究

Can Confucian Culture Prevent Executives of State-owned Enterprises from Grabbing Private Benefits?An Empirical Study Based on the Data of Scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties

本文从非正式制度角度,探究儒家文化是否会影响国有企业高管的私有收益攫取行为。本文手工收集明清进士数据,以中国A股上市国有企业为样本进行实证分析并发现,国有企业所在地儒家文化氛围越浓厚,高管攫取私有收益的行为越少;公司内部控制越不健全、机构持股比例越低,儒家文化氛围对高管攫取私有收益的抑制效应越强。同时,法律法规越不完善、公司受媒体关注程度越低、公司所在地区市场化进程越慢,儒家文化对高管攫取私有收益的抑制效应也越明显。这表明传统儒家文化对公司治理机制中的正式制度存在一定的替代作用。本文提供了儒家文化可显著缓解公司代理问题的证据,为我国传统文化的“古为今用”提供了思路,同时丰富了“文化与金融”领域的相关研究。

From the perspective of informal institution,this paper explores whether Confucian culture influences the behavior of executives of state-owned enterprises(SOE)in grabbing private benefits.Using hand-collected data on scholars from Ming and Qing dynasties and Chinese A-share listed SOE as the sample,we find that the Confucian culture in the location of SOE can constrain executives from grabbing private benefits.Further investigations show that the effect of Confucian culture on the private benefit grabbing behavior of SOE executives is stronger when the internal control system is weak and the institutional ownership is low.The suppression effect of Confucian culture on SOE executives'private benefit grabbing behavior is also more pronounced when the laws and regulations are weak,when the company receives less attention from the media,and when the marketization process is slow.It suggests that there is a substitution relation between the traditional Confucian culture and the formal system of corporate governance.This paper provides evidence that Confucian culture can alleviate the agency problem in modern firms.Also it provides ideas of“serving the present with the past”for the traditional culture and enriches the research on culture and finance.