中国独立董事声誉机制的有效性研究——基于违规处罚市场反应视角的经验证据

Study on Reputation Mechanism Effectiveness of Independent Directors in China:Empirical Evidence from Market Reaction for Fraud Punishment

声誉机制是独立董事制度运行的重要基础,自2001年中国证监会强制要求在上市公司中设立独立董事以来,独立董事声誉机制是否有效备受关注。笔者采用事件研究法对沪深两市A股2005—2011年间的独立董事违规处罚事件进行了研究,并据此判断独立董事声誉机制的有效性。检验结果发现:投资者对受罚独立董事所在公司及受罚独立董事兼任公司呈现出短暂的、微弱的负面市场反应;进一步区分违规处罚的轻重程度和独立董事类型后的研究结果揭示:违规处罚越重,独立董事的社会资本越多,负面市场反应越强。上述结果表明,中国独立董事的市场声誉机制已经在一定程度上呈现微弱有效,但同时也应重视合理利用独立董事的社会资本。本文丰富和拓展了中国情境下独立董事制度有效性的相关研究,有助于进一步加深对声誉机制在独立董事制度运行中如何发挥作用这一问题的理解和认识。

Reputation mechanism is an important basis for operation of independent directors, and the reputation mechanism effectiveness of independent directors has attracted much attention from 2001 when CSRC required listed companies to set up independent directors. This article adopts event study method to research on market reaction for fraud punishment of independent directors from 2005 to 2011 and estimates the reputation mechanism effectiveness of independent directors. We find that investors have a transitory and weak negative market reaction to companies regardless of punitive independent directors work in or punitive independent directors hold a concurrent post; furthermore, we divide the whole sample into some sub-sample by severity of punishments and the types of independent directors, the results shows that severity of punishments and social capital of punitive independent directors are related to negative reaction. Overall, the empirical evidence above indicates reputation mechanism is weakly effective to some extent in China; meanwhile, we should pay attention to the promotion of social capital among independent directors. This article enriches and expands studies on effectiveness of independent directors in Chinese context, and it is helpful for better comprehension of how reputation mechanism plays a role in independent directors system.