管理层权力、现金股利与企业投资效率

Managerial Power,Cash Dividends and Enterprises' Investment Efficiency

本文选用2006-2011年我国A股上市公司数据作为研究样本,实证检验了管理层权力对企业分配现金股利的影响。研究结果表明,管理层权力大小与现金股利支付率高低显著负相关。文章进一步检验了现金股利与企业投资效率的关系,并检验管理层权力对该相关关系的影响。研究发现,在内部自由现金流富余且投资过度的样本中,发放现金股利能够有效减少自由现金流,抑制过度投资;在自由现金流紧缺且投资不足的样本中,企业支付现金股利会加剧现金流紧缺,造成更严重的投资不足。管理层权力的存在降低了现金股利对非效率投资的影响。本研究的启示意义在于,在讨论股利政策与公司投资决策的作用机理时,管理层权力是一个重要的影响因素。

Dividend and investment decisions are two of the three most important decisions in modern corporate finance. Theory scholars and practical experts are putting more emphasis on research about the relationship between them. In an agency theory framework, we explore the mechanism among managerial power, cash dividends and investment efficiency. As is known, the fact of insider control is very common in China, which results in managerial power. With the managerial power becoming stronger, managers have more ability to affect the corporate decisions. China provides better environment for us to discuss this topic. We expect there will be more interesting and valuable findings. Based on the data of Chi- na＇s Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange on ＇A type＇ of share listed companies from 2006 to 2011, this article first investigates into the issue of whether managerial power affects cash dividends. The results suggest that cash dividends are negatively associated with managerial power. This article further verifies the relationship between managerial power and enterprises＇ investment efficiency. Results show that on one hand, in the group of ＂rich cash flow and over-investment＂, cash dividends can lessen the obvious relationship between cash flow and over-investment effectively which can restrict the companies＇ over-investment; on the other hand, in the group of ＂less cash flow and under-investment＂, cash dividends can worsen the insufficiency of cash flow, which leads to more serious problem of under-investment. At the same time, the managerial power can effectively reduce the cash dividends＇ impact on the low-efficiency of investment. These results apply to both state-owned and non-state companies even though the generating mechanisms of managerial power in them are different from each other. From results above, we can get that managers always have willingness to expand investment. They reduce dividends in order to control more cash flow. This is consistent with the conclusion that managers always pursue private kingdom （Schumpeter, 1990）. The above results still hold to different kinds of robustness checks. This paper not only provides researchers fresh application of managerial power theory, but also has significant implications on how corporate governance affects dividend and investment decisions.