董事及高階主管政治連結與公司績效之關聯性

Political Connection and Firm Performance

本文主要探討公司成員政治背景是否影響企業績效。本文以大股東、最高階主管或董事成員是否擔任過中央政府官員、民意代表及相關政黨工作等特性，作為公司政治背景之替代變數，以台灣 2005 年至 2011 年之上市櫃公司為研究對象，實證結果發現，具有政治背景之公司，無論是會計績效或市場績效皆顯著較差。另將政治相關職位做進一步的分析發現，當公司有較高比例的董事成員擔任過中央政府官員或民意代表時，不但未能替公司增加價值，反而會產生較差的公司績效，此結果不受董事成員專業知識高低的影響，且在金融海嘯前後期均有相同的結果。最後，本文亦考慮公司取得政治連結的動機，結果發現，無論是否有較高的未來投資機會，政治連結均與公司績效呈顯著負相關，此外當公司有未來融資需求以及有較高的租稅管理程度時，政治連結對公司績效有顯著負向影響。

This paper investigates how political connections affect firm performance. Different from prior studies, we enlarge the scope of political connections to include the board of directors in addition to large shareholders and top management. Besides, we also examine connection types, including connections through political parties, members of parliament, and government ministers. Using a sample of Taiwanese-listed firms from years 2005 to 2011, we find that politically-connected firms have lower accounting performance as well as lower market performance. Further analysis indicates that firms have weaker performance when they have higher proportions of directors serving as central government officers or legislative body representatives. The negative association is not affected by the director's level of professional knowledge and exists both before and after the financial crisis. The results are also consistent across different incentives (including future growth opportunities, financing needs, and tax avoidance) for politically-connected firms.