美國Say-on-Pay 投票對高管薪酬變動的影響

Abstract

Say-on-Pay投票制度對代理問題的影響一直備受爭議。支持者相信這一制度可以使公司股東和管理者的利益聯繫更緊密，確保董事會行使監督的職責。反對者質疑股東很難理解高管薪酬的結構設計，會影響董事會制定最優薪酬策略。在本文中，我發現當下公司確實存在代理問題，低Say-on-Pay投票支持率歸因於不匹配的高管薪酬。然後我檢驗了Say-on-Pay投票對高管接下來薪酬變動的影響，用兩個工具變數解決了內生性問題，並且用一階差值回歸解決了遺漏變數偏誤使得結論更可信。證據表明低Say-on-Pay投票支持率可以減少高管超額薪酬的增加，尤其是股權類薪酬。

The effect of the Say-on-Pay (SOP) vote on the agency problem has been a controversial issue. Proponents of the provision believe that SOP votes further align owners’ interests with managers’ interests, ensuring that board members fulfill their monitoring duty. Critics doubt that it is difficult for shareholders to understand the design of executive compensation structure, discouraging the board from developing an optimal compensation strategy. In the paper, I find that the agency problem does exist in modern firms and low SOP support is attributed to misaligned executive compensation. Then I examine the effect of SOP votes on the subsequent growth of executive composition. I solve the endogeneity problem with two instrumental variables and eliminate the omitted-variable bias with first-difference regressions to make the results more convincing. Evidence shows that low SOP support can reduce the growth of excess executive compensation, especially equity-based compensation.