董監事責任險保險金額與會計盈餘品質之關聯性研究

Abstract

本研究探討董監事責任保險與公司會計盈餘品質之關聯性，進而了解董監事責任保險是否會造成道德風險。文中以裁決性應計項目（discretionary accruals）作為會計盈餘品質衡量基準，再用迴歸與T檢定等方法檢驗董監事責任保險與各變數間之關係。 研究貢獻是（1）首度提出保險金額過度（不足）估計模型，（2）探討裁決性應計項目與董監事責任保險金額過度（不足）之關聯性，（3）檢測裁決性應計項目與企業市值的關係式，進而描述市值與董監事責任保險在公司治理上的互補性。 實證結果發現：「市值」與「負債比率」係影響董監事責任保險投保金額的因素，「日報酬率標準差」則非顯著之變因。「市值」、「過度（不足）保險金額」及「上年度裁決性應計項目」可解釋裁決性應計項目的變異。市值與裁決性應計項目呈反比；保險金額過度者裁決性應計項目較高。投保董監事責任保險金額偏高的企業，會計盈餘品質較低。此結果與「高責任保障可能提高董監事對於財報製作品質監督不力的道德風險」假說方向一致。

This study examines the association between the amount of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance and accounting earnings quality, exploring whether the directors’ and officers’ liability insurance will create moral hazard. In this study, we use discretionary accruals as benchmarks. The regression analysis and t-tests are used to estimate the normal level of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance and check the association of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance with other variables. This study adds to the literature in that (1) it proposes and estimates the model for normal amount of insurance and thus identifies the firms that are better covered, (2) it explores the association between discretionary accruals and the amount of excess directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, and (3) it confers the association between discretionary accruals and the market values, with which it facilitates the functional complementation of corporate governance between enterprise market value and the directors’ and officers’ liability insurance. Empirical results are consistent with the notion that excess directors’ and officers’ insurance induces the directors’ and officers’ moral hazard in monitoring the quality of corporate financial statements. First, market value and debt ratio are the variables to the amount of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance. In contrast, the explanatory power of standard deviation of daily return is insignificant. Second, market value, excess amount of insurance and previous-year discretionary accruals help explain the variation of discretionary accruals. Specifically, discretionary accrual decreases with market value but increases with excess amount of insurance. Third, the firms with greater excess directors’ and officers’ liability insurance are with low accounting earnings quality.