IPO股利承诺制度与投资者保护——基于一个准自然实验

IPO Dividend Commitment Policy and Investor Protection——Based on a Quasi-natural Experiment

分红权作为投资者的基本权利,对投资者尤为重要,但一些上市公司的非理性分红行为对投资者的利益造成侵害。为此,证监会于2011年提出IPO股利承诺制度,要求首次公开发行上市的公司在招股说明书中对上市后3年的股利分配做出自愿性承诺。同时,上海证券交易所和深圳证券交易所规定,控股股东在上市前取得的股份在上市后3年内不能自由流通。基于这样的制度背景,以IPO股利承诺制度的推出作为准自然实验,研究IPO股利承诺制度的投资者保护效应及其作用机制,并检验政策的传导路径。选取2006年至2018年A股上市公司作为研究样本,结合IPO股利承诺制度要求披露的、控股股份无法公开流通的两个“3年”特征,将上市不足3年的公司作为实验组,建立双重差分模型展开分析。研究结果表明,IPO股利承诺制度存在两种保护投资者利益的方式,可归纳为增加收益和抑制掏空;该制度显著降低了实验组公司的现金股利水平,是因抑制掏空效应较强所导致的,不代表制度失效;政策效应在国有公司中表现为增加收益,在非国有公司中表现为抑制掏空。进一步检验发现,随着公司上市年龄的增加,政策效应出现衰减,在上市满3年后彻底消失。并且,股利承诺力度与上市后的股利支付水平显著正相关,说明股利承诺内容对上市后的股利分配具有约束作用,存在IPO股利承诺制度-上市公司股利承诺内容-上市后实际股利分配的政策传导路径。对投资者有益的现金分红需要行政监管引导,是提高投资者保护水平的结果,研究结果从这一视角赋予结果模型新的内涵,为金融监管的深化改革提供实证支持,为股利理论的深入研究提供补充。

Dividend rights,as the basic right of investors,is particularly important to investors,but some listed companies'irrational dividend behavior damage the profit of investors.For this reason,CSRC put forward the IPO Dividend Commitment Policy(IDCP)in 2011,which requires IPO companies to make a voluntary commitment on the dividend policy of three years after listing.And according to regulations of the Shanghai(Shenzhen)Stock Exchange,shares held by controlling shareholders prior to listing cannot be traded freely for the first three years following listing.On the basis of the institutional context and using the IDCP as a quasi-natural experiment,we study investor protection effect and its mechanism,then analyze the transmission path of the policy.We take the A-share listed companies from 2006 to 2018 in Shanghai and Shenzhen as the sample,and combine two"three-year"characteristics of the IDCP and non-tradable shares of controlling shareholder to label treatment companies which the listing age are less than three years,to research by difference-in-differences models.The results show that the IDCP has two ways to protect the profit of investors.One is"Increase Returns",and the other is"Limit Tunneling".The decrease of cash dividend level in treatment samples is due to a stronger"Limit Tunneling"effect rather than invalid regulation.The policy effect in state-owned companies is"Increase Returns",in non-state-owned companies is"Limit Tunneling".Furthermore,as the age of listing increases,the effect of the policy decreases and disappears completely after three years of listing.The result of the positive correlation between the dividend level of commitment and dividend payment,shows that the content of commitment has a restrictive effect on the actual dividend after listing,and there exist an effect path of"The IDCP-Content of commitment-Dividend payment after IPO".In summary,it is found that dividends beneficial to investors need to be supervised,which is a result of the improvement of investor protection level.From this perspective,we give a new explanation of"result model".Our conclusions provide empirical support for the deepening reform of financial supervision and literature supplement for the in-depth study of dividend theory.