疫情期間股價行為所顯現市場對企業員工健康安全指標的延後反應

Abstract

先前流行病對個人身心生命與企業獲利威脅伏低既久，至新冠疫情前企業之員工健康安全措施之議題已少被社會科學領域積極討論。本研究從該項人力資本變數探討市場對此一無形資產之價值認定，有鑑於員工生產力或隨其與企業間顯性與隱形契約增減，若企業較重視員工健康安全，或能在平時穩固人力資本並累積較高的該項無形資產價值，當新冠疫情帶來衝擊，企業也較能確保營運利益。因此，疫情期間股票市場應正面支持較重視員工健康安全的企業。研究發現，二年前的企業員工健康安全指標為自變數單獨被納入模型時，正向解釋疫情期間股票異常報酬，本研究實證提供股票市場對於企業之員工健康安全指標延後補作反應的證據，符合過往文獻指出股票市場對無形資產時常不完全反應。此外，市場對於企業員工健康安全指標的敏感度因疫情嚴峻程度增減，當疫情處於低嚴峻期間，股票市場的反應較不靈敏。

Prior to the COVID-19 shocks, pandemics had been affecting human being lives and firm profitability less and less severely. In recent years, employee health and safety became infrequently discussed in social science research. This thesis focuses on the extent to which the capital market underestimates the value of employee health and safety measures, a potential intangible asset item of a company. We argue that the productivity of the employees varies with the soundness of their explicit and/or implicit contracts with the firms. Given the aforementioned facts, the firms with high employee health and safety (hereafter also referred to as H & S) scores may have valuable intangible assets but the market may underestimate the informativeness of H & S indicators until the Coronavirus caused health problems. We posit and show that in the pandemic era, the stock market responds to firm superiority in employee health and safety positively. The empirical results show that the firms with higher employee health and safety scores two years before the event quarter have greater abnormal returns. This finding indicates that the stock market recognizes the value of employee health and safety but does it in delay. The result is in line with the findings from other research, showing the stock market prices intangible assets informationally inefficiently. Moreover, we document that the stock market reacts more (less) sensitively to employee health and safety measures in the more (less) severe stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.