企业历史亏损会影响高管薪酬水平吗?

Does the Historical Losses Affect Executive Compensation?

本文以我国A股上市公司2009—2017年的数据为样本,研究了企业历史亏损对高管薪酬水平的影响。研究结果发现:具有历史亏损“包袱”的企业高管超额薪酬支付程度更高。这是因为,一方面,历史亏损企业的分红约束会引发大股东的掏空行为,进而大股东会利用薪酬设计来赎买高管助力掏空;另一方面,分红约束加大了代理冲突,使股东更加关注业绩及其资本利得,导致高管更愿意选择盈余管理方式改变企业绩效水平,来满足股东投资回报要求,同时,也迎合了大股东的超额薪酬契约设计。进一步分组研究发现:在第一大股东持股比例低、股权制衡程度高的情况下,历史亏损企业的掏空行为更多;在高管持股比例低,高管业务素养程度低的情况下盈余管理更多。本文从历史亏损企业分红约束的视角揭示高管超额薪酬现象,验证了历史亏损企业大股东掏空及高管盈余管理存在的条件,可为历史亏损企业股权结构设计以及完善高管激励机制提供经验证据。

Historical loss making enterprises refer to enterprises whose profits have been turned into profits in the current or previous years,but whose profits now cannot compensate for the operating losses in the previous years.On the balance sheet,it reflects the“burden”of large negative undistributed profits.China's economy is in a critical period of upgrading its development mode,optimizing its economic structure and transforming its growth momentum,and many listed companies are suffering from historical losses.“No profit,no distribution”is the basic principle of dividend distribution in company law of various countries.When the enterprise has a historical loss,even if the enterprise has normal operating ability,it can not make up for the“burden”of negative undistributed profits,so that shareholders can not share the business interests in the form of dividend income.Therefore,we should pay attention to the issue of shareholder dividend restriction in historical loss making enterprises,because it is of great significance for promoting the transformation and upgrading of China's economic entities and enhancing competitiveness.Theoretically,cash dividend constraint will lead to agency conflict,which will lead to the reduction of executive compensation level.It is the inevitable result of principal agent relationship.However,historical loss making enterprises show the coexistence of shareholder cash dividend constraint and executive excess compensation.Does this imply that there may be some secret agreements between major shareholders and executives?According to this idea,firstly,this paper examines the effect of the cash dividend constraint of historical loss making enterprises on executive compensation,based on Shanghai and Shenzhen A share listed firms in China between 2009 and 2017.The results show that the historical loss making enterprises have a higher level executive excess compensation than non historical loss making enterprises.The results hold when we use instrumental variable two stage regressions,as well as propensity score matching(PSM)approach.We further investigate possible underlying mechanisms and find that historical loss increases tunneling and earnings management.The results suggest that on the one hand the cash dividend constraint of historical loss making enterprises will lead to the tunneling behavior of major shareholders,and then the major shareholders will use compensation design to redeem executive;on the other hand,the cash dividend constraint enlarges agency conflict,which makes shareholders pay more attention to performance and capital gains,and leads executives to prefer earnings management to meet shareholders'investment return requirements.Further analysis shows that the tunneling is stronger in firms that have a low proportion of the largest shareholder and a strong equity restriction;the earnings management is stronger in firms that have a low managerial ownership and a low executive professional qualities.The possible contributions of this paper are mainly embodied in the following aspects:(1)It enriches the relevant literature on the executive compensation of historical loss making enterprises.(2)this paper for the first time reveals the influence mechanism of executive excess compensation from the perspective of cash dividend constraints.By verifying the existence of large shareholder tunneling and executive earnings management problems in historical loss making enterprises,this paper supports the conclusion of Li Wenzhou(2014),that is,excess compensation is the balanced result of dynamic game between large shareholders and executives.This conclusion can provide theoretical reference for the compensation design of historical loss making enterprises.(3)It verifies the existing conditions of large shareholder tunneling and executive earnings management in historical loss making enterprises.In this paper,the shareholder tunneling mechanism is further grouped by the proportion of the largest shareholder and the degree of equity restriction,and the earnings management mechanism is further grouped and discussed by the managerial ownership and the level of executive professional qualities.The conclusion can provide empirical evidence for the design of ownership structure and executive incentive of historical loss making enterprises.