累积投票制与投资者保护

CUMULATIVE VOTING AND THE MINORITY SHAREHOLDER PROTECTION

本文分析了累积投票制在写入上市公司章程之后的短期市场反应和对公司长期绩效及治理水平的影响。通过事件研究法和差分回归方法,本文发现在上市公司宣布将累积投票制写入公司章程的[—7,1]天窗口期内,其股价将产生0.4%的累积平均超常收益(年化约为11%)。从长期的影响来看,累积投票制将显著提升上市公司的绩效表现和投资者单位投资所取得的回报。进一步的研究发现,绩效的提升来自更高水平的公司治理。实证结果表明,公司将累计投票制写入章程可以提高实际使用累积投票制选举董事的概率,增加董事会会议次数,提高董事会独立性,改变股权结构,提高董事会任命的高管团队的平均受教育水平。同时,上述公司治理的提升将从一定程度上抑制大股东利用关联交易“掏空”公司的行为。

Using a sample of listed firms in China,this paper analyzes the short-term market reaction and long term economic impact of the adoption of the cumulative voting on corporate performance and corporate governance.With event study and difference in-differences estimation methods,our results show that in the short-term,the announcement of the cumulative voting system leads to 0.4% of the cumulative average abnormal returns during[-7,1]days window period(about 11% annually).In the long run,the cumulative voting system significantly improves the performance of listed companies.The improvement of performance is largely due to the improved corporate governance.Specifically,we find that firms with cumulative voting written in articles are using cumulative voting more frequently during director elections,having more board meetings,with higher independence level of the board of directors,with better shareholding structure,and with higher educational level of management teams.Our results also show that cumulative voting will,in some extent,reduce the large shareholders'“tunneling”of listed companies.