企业劳动杠杆影响分析师研究精力分配吗?

Can Corporate Labor Leverage Affect Analyst Research Effort Allocation?

在我国劳动力成本不断攀升的背景下,本文考察了劳动报酬准固定成本属性引发的经营杠杆效应对分析师研究精力分配决策的影响。研究发现,相比于高劳动杠杆公司,分析师对低劳动杠杆公司投入了更多的研究精力,表明在有限关注的条件下,劳动杠杆是影响分析师策略性精力分配行为的关键因素。进一步研究表明:(1)劳动杠杆的提高显著增大了分析师的盈余预测误差,表明边际努力收益的降低是分析师减少对高劳动杠杆公司投入更多研究精力的重要原因;(2)劳动杠杆与分析师研究精力分配的关系存在一定的异质性:当企业劳动报酬中固定成本占比较高或者分析师更“忙碌”时,二者负向关系增强;而随着分析师预测收益的提高,二者负向关系减弱。

In the context of surging labor costs in China, this paper examines the effects of quasi-fixed labor costinduced forms of operating leverage on analyst research effort allocation. The paper finds that compared with firms with high labor leverage, analysts allocate more of their research efforts to firms with low labor leverage, indicating that with limited resources, labor leverage is one determinant in analyst research behavior. Further evidence shows that:(1) The rise of labor leverage significantly increases the analyst's earnings forecast errors, suggesting that the reduction of marginal effort return is an important reason for analysts to reduce their research effort allocation on firms with a high labor leverage.(2) The relationship between labor leverage and analyst research effort allocation has a certain heterogeneity: the negative relationship is more pronounced when firms have a higher proportion of fixed costs in their labor compensation or when analyst's workloads are greater, while the negative relationship diminishes as analysts' forecast income increases.