代理問題與盈餘穩健性

Agency Problems and Accounting Conservatism

Watts（2003a，2003b）指出穩健會計乃是為了解決公司契約各方面當事人間因資訊不對稱、報酬不對稱、有限期間與有限責任所導致的道德危機，所發展出的一種有效率的契約機制。本研究針對此論點，探討盈餘穩健性可以降低哪些企業利害關係人之間的代理問題，提高契約效率性，包括傳統股東與經理人之間因資訊不對稱造成的道德危機、控制股東對小股東剝奪的代理問題，以及債務契約相關的代理問題。實證結果發現，經理人更換越頻繁、現金股利率愈低、控制股東控制權與盈餘分配權偏離程度愈大，以及長期負債比率愈高的企業，會計盈餘穩健性愈高，反映這些代理衝突引發外部投資人對盈餘品質的需求因而提高企業的盈餘穩健性。然而，當董監酬勞佔會計盈餘的比率愈高、自由現金流量愈高，以及董監事股權質押愈高時，企業的盈餘穩健性並未顯著提高，顯示穩健性也受到公司治理環境與經理人誘因影響。

This paper investigates the effectiveness of conservatism in mitigating the agency problems among stakeholders. The empirical results indicate that conservative accounting reduces moral hazard caused by managers' limited horizons and limited liability, and agency problems due to deviation between control and cash flow rights and agency conflicts between bondholders and shareholders. However, conservative accounting cannot mitigate interest conflicts induced by free cash flows and directors' shares collateralization. Our results also show that firms tend to use less conservative accounting when there are other governance mechanisms in the firms to reduce agency conflicts, such as high cash dividend payout ratio.