投資機會和投資者保護機制對控股股東派息的影響

The Impact of Investment Opportunities and Investor Protection on the Dividend Policies of Ultimate Owners

La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny （2000） 和 Faccio, Lang, and Young （2001）這兩篇文章分別講述了在投資者保護較好機制的國家和控股股東兩權分離的情況下，公司會有較高派息。本文主要研究投資者保護機制在公司治理中的作用，具體而言，在絕對控股股東的投票權高於分紅權（兩權分離）時，研究投資者保護機制對派息的影響。本文用22個東亞和西歐的公司層面股東資料，發現投資者保護機制、兩權分離程度、投資機會三者連乘後，與派息水平顯著負相關，說明投資者保護機制越好的國家，投資機會越好的公司，會削弱文獻中已發現的派息水平與有兩權分離控股股東的正相關關係，也就是說，即使控股股東兩權分離度高，但投資機會越好，投資者保護機制越好的時候，派息會下降。實證檢驗結果也顯示，尤其在缺乏公司治理的發展中國家，好的投資者保護機制，可以讓控股股東在做為公司長遠發展有益的決策時，不用刻意粉飾自己可能會損害少數股東的行為。最後，結果也說明，在好的投資者保護機制下，少數股東要求派息的權利和絕對控股股東兩權分離的影響相抵消。

Given the findings of two influential studies of higher dividend payouts in countries with strong investor protection (La Porta et al., 2000) and firms with controlling shareholders (Faccio et al., 2001), this study examines the governance role of legal institutions in the dividend payout policy of the ultimate owners of firms in which shareholder power is not aligned with the “divergence” force. Based on a broad firm-level ultimate ownership data set from 22 East Asian and Western European countries, we find the coefficients of the interactions among the legal protection of investors, control divergence, and investment opportunities to be negatively and significantly associated with dividend payouts, which suggests that the high dividends paid by controlling shareholders with control divergence are lowered when the reinvestment opportunities of firms are good in countries with strong legal protection. Our findings imply that the enhancement of legal institutions, especially in emerging markets in which governance systems are weak, can mitigate the efforts of controlling shareholders to mask their expropriation activities from minority shareholders. Our results indicate that shareholder “power” and the “divergence” force of controlling shareholders cancel each other out.