經理人薪酬與認股權是否影響公司股利政策？

Is Corporate Dividend Policy Associated with Executive Compensation and Employee Stock Option?

公司的股利政策一直是公司財務與公司治理中的重要議題。股利發放的多寡牽涉到公司如何回應股東投資其資金應拿回的報酬與未來投資所需資金的權衡，股利發放與其穩定性也是公司治理機制中的一項重要指標，因為股利降低了管理階層挪用公司資源所可能產生的代理成本。公司通常透過提高經理人的薪酬或誘因報酬機制（如認股權）增進其為公司努力的動機，如果經理人薪酬與認股權足以增進公司的經營成果，則公司的股利高低將與經理人薪酬與認股權之多寡呈正相關；另一方面，認股權占總薪酬比例的增加促使管理階層形成降低股利並投資未來的政策，從而在認股權的執行上產生更大獲利的機會，如此一來將有可能降低公司的股利發放而增進公司投資。本文根據2008-2013 年間台灣上市、櫃公司的資料，以現金股利、股利（現金股利＋股票股利）、現金股利發放率、股利（現金股利＋股票股利）發放率、股利（現金股利＋股票股利）的標準差，做為公司股利政策的代理變數，檢驗這些變數是否受經理人薪酬與認股權占薪資之比例所影響。主要實證結果發現，公司管理階層的平均薪酬愈高，股利發放水準與股利的發放率有愈高的傾向，但股利發放穩定性則傾向愈低；當認股權占薪酬的比率愈高時，股利發放的水準與發放率傾向愈低，但不會顯著影響股利發放的穩定性。本文考慮以Heckman (1979)之兩階段估計以降低公司發放認股權之樣本選擇偏誤，並採取落遲自變數以降低同期相關謬誤，主要實證結果並未有明顯的改變。

Dividends policy has been long-standing important financial decision. The amount of dividends paid and its stability are also important indicators of corporate governance mechanism. While executive in company often pursuit his/her own interests but the interests of shareholder/stakeholder as their main goal, increasing executive compensation enhancing incentive as well as reducing agency problem to improve the firm performance. Based on annual data of listed company on Taiwan Stock Exchange/GTSM through 2008-2013, this paper examines the linkage between the level of executive compensation/the amount of employee stock option to total compensation and corporate dividend policy. Company's dividend policy is proxied by cash dividends, dividends (cash dividend plus stock dividend), cash dividend payout ratio, dividend payout ratio and dividend payout variability. Greater level of compensation tends to increase firm's performance and thus dividends, but greater level of employee stock option to total compensation may encourage the management to retained firm's earnings to exploit future profitability. The latter decreases the motivation of dividend payout. Empirical result shows the higher the corporate executive average compensation, the higher the company's dividend level and dividend radio but the lower the degree of variation dividend. The higher the ratio of employee stock option to total compensation, the lower the company's dividend ratio level and payout ratio, but does not significantly affect the degree of variability of dividends. Two-step estimation to reduce sample selection bias and using lagged independent variable to reduce contemporaneous correlation did not change the result significantly.