股权激励与盈余管理外文文献翻译2014年译文4500字

合集下载

股权结构与公司业绩外文翻译(可编辑)

股权结构与公司业绩外文翻译外文翻译Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: Evidence from IsraelMaterial Source: Journal of Management and Governance Author: Beni Lauterbach and Alexander Vaninsky1.IntroductionFor many years and in many economies, most of the business activity was conducted by proprietorships, partnerships or closed corporations. In these forms of business organization, a small and closely related group of individuals belonging to the same family or cooperating in business for lengthy periods runs the firm and shares its profits.However, over the recent century, a new form of business organization flourished as non-concentrated-ownership corporations emerged. The modern diverse ownership corporation has broken the link between the ownership and active management of the firm. Modern corporations are run by professional managers who typically own only a very small fraction of the shares. In addition, ownership is disperse, that is the corporation is owned by and its profits are distributed among many stockholders.The advantages of the modern corporation are numerous. It relievesfinancing problems, which enables the firm to assume larger-scale operations and utilize economies of scale. It also facilitates complex-operations allowing the most skilled or expert managers to control business even when they the professional mangers do not have enough funds to own the firm. Modern corporations raise money sell common stocks in the capital markets and assign it to the productive activities of professional managers. This is why it is plausible to hypothesize that the modern diverse-ownership corporations perform better than the traditional “closely held” business forms.Moderating factors exist. For example, closely held firms may issue minority shares to raise capital and expand operations. More importantly, modern corporations face a severe new problem called the agency problem: there is a chance that the professional mangers governing the daily operations of the firm would take actions against the best interests of the shareholders. This agency problem stems from the separation of ownership and control in the modern corporation, and it troubled many economists before e.g., Berle and Means, 1932; Jensen andMeckling, 1976; Fama and Jensen 1983. The conclusion was that there needs to exist a monitoring system or contract, aligning the manager interests and actions with the wealth and welfare of the owners stockholdersAgency-type problems exist also in closely held firms becausethere are always only a few decision makers. However, given the personal ties between the owners and mangers in these firms, and given the much closer monitoring, agency problems in closely held firms seem in general less severe.The presence of agency problems weakens the central thesis that modern open ownership corporations are more efficient. It is possible that in some business sectors the costs of monitoring and bonding the manager would be excessive. It is also probable that in some cases the advantages of large-scale operations and professional management would be minor and insufficient to outweigh the expected agency costs. Nevertheless, given the historical trend towards diverse ownership corporations, we maintain the hypothesis that diverse-ownership firms perform better than closely held firms. In our view, the trend towards diverse ownership corporations is rational and can be explained by performance gains.2. Ownership Structure and Firm PerformanceOne of the most important trademarks of the modern corporation is the separation of ownership and control. Modern corporations are typically run by professional executives who own only a small fraction of the shares.There is an ongoing debate in the literature on the impact and merit of the separation of ownership and control. Early theorists such as Williamson 1964 propose that non-owner managers prefer their owninterests over that of the shareholders. Consequently, non-owner managed firms become less efficient than owner-managed firms.The more recent literature reexamines this issue and prediction. It points out the existence of mechanisms that moderate the prospects of non-optimal and selfish behavior by the manager. Fama 1980, for example, argues that the availability and competition in the managerial labor markets reduce the prospects that managers would act irresponsibly. In addition, the presence of outside directors on the board constrains management behavior. Others, like Murphy 1985, suggest that executive compensation packages help align management interests with those of the shareholders by generating a link between management pay and firm performanceHence, non-owner manager firms are not less efficient than owner-managed firms. Most interestingly, Demsetz and Lehn 1985 conclude that the structure of ownership varies in ways that are consistent with value imization. That is, diverse ownership and non-owner managed firms emerge when they are more worthwhile.The empirical evidence on the issue is mixed see Short 1994 for a summaryPart of the diverse results can be attributed to the difference across the studies in the criteria for differentiation between owner and non-owner manager controlled firms. These criteria, typically based on percentage ownership by large stockholders, are less innocuous and more problematic than initially believed because, as demonstrated by Morck,Shleifer and Vishny 1988 and McConnell and Servaes 1990, the relation between percentage ownership and firm performance is nonlinear. Further, percent ownership appears insufficient for describing the control structure. Two firms with identical overall percentage ownership by large blockholders are likely to have different control organizations, depending on the identity of the large stockholders.In this study, we utilize the ownership classification scheme proposed by Ang, Hauser and Lauterbach 1997. This scheme distinguishes between non-owner managed firms, firms controlled by concerns, firms controlled by a family, and firms controlled by a group of individuals partners. Obviously, the control structure in each of these firm types is different. Thus, some new perspectives on the relation between ownership structure and firm performance might emerge.3. DataWe employ data from a developing economy, Israel, where many forms of business organization coexist. The sample includes 280 public companies traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange TASE during 1994. For each company we collect data on the 1992?1994 net income profits after tax, 1994 total assets, 1994 equity, 1994 top management remuneration, and 1994 ownership structure. All data is extracted from the companies financial reports except for the classification of firms according to their ownership structure, which is based on the publica tions, “Holdings ofInterested Parties” issued by the Israel Securities Authority, “Meitav Stock Guide,” and “Globes Stock Exchange Yearbook”.The initial sample included all firms traded on the TASE about 560 at the time. However, sample size shrunk by half because: 1 according to the Israeli Security Authority the Israeli counterpart of the US SEC only 434 companies provided reliable compensation reports; 2 147 companies have a negative 1992?94 average net income, which makes them unsuitable for the methodology we employ; and 3 for 7 firms we could not determine the ownership structure.The companies in the sample represent a rich variety of ownership structures, as illustrated in Figure 1. Nine percent of the firms do not have any majority owner. Among majority owned firms, individuals family firms or partnerships of individuals own 72% and the rest are controlled by concerns. About half 49% of the individually-controlled firms are dominated by a partnership of individuals and the rest 51% are dominated by families. Professional non-owner CEOs are found in about 15% of the individually controlled firms.4. Methodology: Data Envelopment AnalysisIn this study, we measure relative performance using Data Envelopment Analysis DEA. Data Envelopment Analysis is currently a leading methodology in Operations Research for performance evaluations see Seiford and Thrall, 1990, and previous versions of it have been usedin Finance by Elyasiani andMehdian, 1992, for example.The main advantage of Data Envelopment Analysis is that it is a parameter-free approach. For each analyzed firm, DEA constructs a “twin” comparable virtual firm consisting of a portfolio of other sample firms. Then, the relative performance of the firm can be determined. Other quantitative techniques such as regression analysis are parametric, that is it estimates a “production function” and assesses each firm performance according to its residual relative to the fitted fixed parameters economy-wide production function. We are not claiming that parametric methods are inadequate. Rather, we attempt a different and perhaps more flexible methodology, and compare its results to the standard regression methodology Findings.The equity ratio variable represents expectation that given the firm size, the higher the investments of stockholders equity, the higher their return net income. Finally, the CEO and top management compensation variables are controlling for the managers’ input. One of our central points is that top managers’ actions and skills affect firm output. Hence, higher pay mangers who presumably are also higher-skill are expected to yield superior profits. Rosen 1982 relates executives’ pay and rank in the organization to their skills and abilities, and Murphy 1998 discusses in de tail the structure of executive pay and its relation to firm’s performance.The DEA analysis and the empirical estimation of the relative performance of different organizational forms are repeated in four separate subsets of firms: Investment companies, Industrial companies, Real-estate companies, and Trade and services companies. This sector analysis controls for the special business environment of the firms and facilitates further examination of the net effect of ownership structure on firm performance.5.Empirical Results The main results of the empirical findings reviewed above are that majority Control by a few individuals diminishes firm performance, and that professional non-owner managers promote performance. The conclusions about individual control and professional management are reinforced by two other findings. First, it appears that firms without professional managers and firms controlled by individuals are more likely to exhibit negative net income.Second, Table IV also presents results of regressions of net income, NET INC, on leverage, size, professional manager dummy, and individual control dummy.6. ConclusionsThe empirical analysis of 280 firms in Israel reveals that ownership structure impacts firm performance, where performance is estimated as the actual net income of the firm divided by the optimal net income given the firm’s inputs. We find that:Out of all organizational forms, family owner-managed firms appearleast efficient in generating profits. When all firms are considered, only family firms with owner managers have an average performance score of less than 30%, and when performance is measured relative to the business sector, only family firms with owner-managers have an average score of less than 50%.2Non-owner managed firms perform better than owner-managed firms. These findings suggest that the modern form of business organization, namely the open corporation with disperse ownership and non-owner managers, promotes performance Critical readers may wonder how come “efficient” and “less-efficient” organizational structures coexist. The answer is that we probably do not document a long-term equilibrium situation. The lower-performing family and partnership controlled firms are likely, as time progresses, to transform into public-controlled non-majority owned corporations.A few reservations are in order. First, we do not contend that every company would gain by transforming into a disperse ownership public firm. For example, it is clear that start-up companies are usually better off when they are closely held. Second, there remain questions about the methodology and its application Data Envelopment Analysis is not standard in Finance. Last, we did not show directly that transforming into a disperse ownership public firm improves performances. Future research should further explore any performance gains from the separation ofownership and control.译文股权结构与公司业绩资料来源:管理治理杂志作者:贝尼?劳特巴赫和亚历山大?范尼斯基多年来,在许多经济体中的大多数商业活动是由独资企业、合伙企业或者非公开企业操作管理的。

股票期权激励外文翻译文献

股票期权激励外文翻译文献(文档含中英文对照即英文原文和中文翻译)原文：SOE Execs: Get Ready For Stock IncentivesTAN WEIStock option incentive plan will soon be available to state-owned enterprise executives, but will it lead to greater prosperity or new problems?A trailblazing new scheme to infuse state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with incentive stock options is under way. It’s a plan that may bolster company performance, but it’s not without risks.On August 15, Li Rongrong, Minister of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), disclosed that after careful study, a stock option incentive trial plan will be carried out in the listed SOEs.According to the trial plan, about 102 A-share listed SOEs are expected to be the trial companies. The short list of some of those expecting to participate includes: China Unicom, Citic Group, Kweichow Moutai, China Merchants Bank and Beijing Financial Street Holding Co.Stock option incentive plan is designed to entice executives to work hard for the long - term development of their companies. As stocks rise based on company performance, they too gain through this profits haring arrangement. This kind of incentive plan is popular in foreign countries, especially in the United States, where stock options can account for as high as 70 percent of a CEO’s income. Further, many economists believe the stock option incentive plan optimizes corporate governance structure, improve management efficiency and enhance corporate competitiveness. On the other hand, after the Measure s on the Administration of Stock Incentive Plans of Listed Companies was issued early this ye a r, some ofthe companies turned out to have misused the incentive stock options. The result was insider dealings, performance manipulation as well as a manipulation of the company stock price.“Although the stock option incentive scheme is a frequently used tool to encourage top management, it could also be a double - edged sword especially in an immature market economy,” Li said. The SASAC is therefore taking a cautious approach, placing explicit requirements on corporate governance, the target and extent of the incentive measures, Li added.Li stated that the overseas-listed SOEs would be the first few companies that will implement the mechanism because of their sound management structure and law-abiding nature. Then the domestic listed SOEs will have the chance to embrace incentive stock options, which would be promoted if the trial results were good.Executive face-liftAs for more than 900 listed SOEs, the personnel structure of the boards of directors will pro b ably face substantial change. That’s because the plan states that if the s t o ck option incentive mechanism is going to be implemented in listed SOEs, external directors should account for half of the board of directors.The trial plan introduced the concept of external directors for the firsttime. The external director should be legally recommended by directors of listed SOEs, and should not be working in the listed SOEs or in a holding company, said the plan. However, currently, most of boards of directors of listed SOEs are not in compliance with the requirement. They have to readjust the structure of board of directors to fit in with the new mechanism.“For most of the SOEs which are liste d in the A-share market, their boards of directors are made up of non-external directors and independent directors, which means that apart from independent directors, members of board of directors are all working for the listed company or for the large sha reholder,” said Zhu Yongmin, an economist with the Central University of Finance and Economics. “If the stock option incentive mechanism is to be carried out in those companies, a large-scale restructuring of board of directors is unavoidable and external directors must be introduced into the board.”China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) stipulates that an independent director is one who doesn’t hold another office beyond his job as a director, and has no such relations with major share holder that would interfere with the exercise of independent and objective judgment. “Currently, the independent directors of listed companies can be categorized as external directors,” Zhu said. “However, the definition ofexternal director is much broader than independent director. Those who work for a company which has business ties with a listed company, though they do not meet the requirements of being an independent director, but can be considered an external director.”Additionally, the trial plan also stipulates that the salary committee of listed SOEs that exercise the stock option incentive mechanism should be composed of external directors. However, for most of the listed companies, there are still non - external directors. As a result, a considerable number of listed SOEs need to transform their salary committee to fulfill the prerequisites of the stock option incentive mechanism.Avoiding over-compensationOver- compensation is something that the trial stock plan is trying to avoid as well.Therefore, th e trial plan states that domestic listed SOEs’ executives should receive no more than 30 percent of their total salary (including options and dividends). But as for the overseas-listed SOEs, the maximum incentive is 40 percent of the target salary.The trial plan also fixes the volume of incentive stock options.The trial plan states that the volume of incentive stock options should be fixed in accordance with the scale of the listed company and the number of incentive objectives. The number of share allocated may not exceed 10percent of the company’s total share capital and no less than 0.1 percent. In fact, Beijing Review was informed by the CSRC that some 20 listed SOEs also began exploring stock option incentive schemes in the first half of this year. But none of them received approval from the CSRC because their schemes revealed sharp contrast with the trial plan in terms of the scale of incentive stock options offered.Results-orientedUnder the trial plan, better performance is a must to obtain stock privileges.The number of incentive stock options that senior executives in listed SOEs can get depends on their annual performance. If they cannot fulfill the targeted objective s , the listed company may have the right to take back the incentive the stock options or purchase them back at the price at which they we re sold to the executives .Zhu Yongmin noted that the stock option incentive plan is not invariable. The directors of listed companies, senior executives, and core technological and management personnel may not get the target stock options if they fail to achieve a satisfactory performance.No freebiesFor sure, state stocks won’t be given to executives for free, under the trial plan.“The state stocks have prices,” Zheng said. “If they we re paid to senior executives for free in the name of incentive stocks, it is equal to a loss of state assets. To elaborate, the incentive stocks should be the increment of stocks that are earned by the executives for listed SOEs after the implementation of the trial plan, and should not be previous stock inventory. In short, the past is past. Only future stock increases can be used as incentive stocks.”Further, “The incentive stocks should not be paid only by the SASAC, which is the largest shareholder of all the central SOEs,” said Zheng Peimin, Chairman of Shanghai Realize Investment Consulting Co., who took part in drafting the trial plan,. “ The incentive plan should be a joint action of all share holders of a company and they should shoulder the same responsibility and enjoy equal benefit .”Already, share holders pay for salaries of directors, senior executives and technology management staff.“The incentive stocks should also be paid by all shareholders.” Zheng said. “For instance, if the govern ment, or a state owned enterprise, holds 60 percent of a listed SOE, they should only pay 60 percent of the incentive stocks and 40 percent should be paid by other share holders.”译文：国有企业高管：准备迎接股权激励计划谭卫股票期权激励计划将很快应用于国有企业管理人员，但这会带来更大的繁荣，还是新的问题？一个开创性的计划正被引入——国有企业正在实施股票期权激励计划，它可能会增强公司业绩，但它并非没有风险。

投资者保护和企业盈余管理财务外文文献翻译2014年3000多字

文献出处：Leuz C, Nanda D, Wysocki P D. Earnings management and investor protection: an international comparison[J]. Journal of financial economics, 2014, 6(03): 505-527.原文Investor Protection and Earnings Management:An International ComparisonChristian LeuzThe Wharton School of the University of PennsylvaniaDhananjay NandaUniversity of Michigan Business SchoolPeter D. WysockiMIT Sloan School of Management, CambridgeAbstractThis paper examines the relation between outside investor protection and earnings management. We argue that insiders, in an attempt to protect their private control benefits, use earnings management to conceal firm performance from outsiders. We hypothesize that earnings management decreases in investor protection because strong p rotection limits insiders’ ability to acquire private control benefits and hence reduces their incentives to mask firm performance. Using accounting data from 31 countries between 1990 and 1999, we present empirical evidence consistent with this hypothesis. Our result points to an important link between legal institutions, private control benefits and the quality of accounting earnings reported to capital market participants. These findings complement prior finance research that generally treats the quality of corporate reporting as exogenous.Key Words: Corporate governance; Earnings management; Investor protection; Private control benefits; Law1. IntroductionThe legal protection of outside investors has been identified as a key determinant of financial market development, capital and ownership structures, dividend policies, and private control benefits around the world (see Shleifer and Vishny, 1997 and La Porta et al, 2000a). Extant work, however, has paid scant attention to the relation between legal protection and the quality of financial information reported by insiders, namely managers and controlling shareholders, to outsiders, namely the firm’s minority (or arm’s length) shareholders and creditors. Reporting firm performance in a “true and fair” manner is critical for effective corporate governance because it allows outsiders to monitor their claims and exercise their rights (see, for example, OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, 1999).In this paper, we highlight legal protection as a key primitive affecting the quality of firms’ earnings. Strong and well-enforced outsider rights limit the acquisition of private control benefits, and consequently, mitigate insiders’ incentives to manage accounting earnings, as insiders have little to conceal from outsiders. This insight motivates our primary hypothesis that the pervasiveness of earnings management is decreasing in legal protection. Our empirical findings are consistent with this hypothesis.Following Healy and Wahlen (1999), we define earnings management as the alteration of firms’ reported economic performance by insiders to either “mislead some stakeholders” or to “influence contractual outcomes.” We argue that incentives to misrepresent firm performance through earnings management arise from a conflict of interest between the firms’ insiders and outsiders. Specifically, insiders use their control over the firm’s resources to benefit themselves at the expense of outsiders. If these private control benefits are detected, outsiders are likely to take disciplinary actions against insiders. Consequently, insiders have an incentive to conceal these resource diversions from outsiders. We argue that insiders manipulate accounting reports of firm performance in an attempt to hide their private control benefits. For instance, insiders can use their discretion in financial reporting to overstate earnings and conceal unfavorable earnings realizations (e.g., losses) that would prompt outsiderinterference. Similarly, insiders can use accounting choices to understate earnings in years of good performance to create reserves for periods of poor future performance, effectively making reported earnings less variable than true firm performance. Outsiders’ ability to govern a firm is weakened when extensive earn ings management results in financial reports that inaccurately reflect firm performance.The effectiveness of a country’s legal system in protecting minority shareholders and outside creditors limits insiders' ability to acquire private control benefits (e.g., Claessens et al., 2000a; Nenova, 2000; Dyck and Zingales, 2002). Strong legal protection increases insiders’ costs of diverting resources (e.g., Shleifer and Vishny, 1997; La Porta et al., 2000a; Shleifer and Wolfenzon, 2000). We argue that insiders’incentive to conceal their private control benefits decreases in the legal system’s effectiveness in protecting outside investor interests. Thus, our primary hypothesis is that earnings management decreases in legal protection because strong investor prot ection limits the acquisition of private control benefits, which reduces insiders’ incentives to obfuscate performance.This hypothesis is tested using financial accounting and institutional data for a sample of firms from 31 countries (from 1990 to 1999) with substantial variation in investor protection laws and enforcement activities. We create four related proxies to measure the pervasiveness of earnings management in a country. The measures capture the extent to which insiders manage the “accounting” c omponent of reported earnings to smooth or mask the firm’s economic performance, and together proxy for the level of earnings management in a country. Our analysis begins with a descriptive country cluster analysis, which groups countries with similar legal and institutional characteristics. Three distinct country clusters are identified:(1) outsider economies with strong legal enforcement (e.g., UK and US); (2) insider economies with strong legal enforcement (e.g. Germany and Japan); and, (3) insider economies with weak legal enforcement (e.g., Italy and India). The clusters closely parallel simple code/common-law and regional characterizations used in prior work (e.g., La Porta et al., 1997; Ball et al. 2000). Outsider economies with strong enforcement display the lowest and insider economies with weak enforcement thehighest level of earnings management. That is, earnings management appears to be lower in economies with strong investor protection, large stock markets, dispersed ownership, and strong legal enforcement.To relate earnings management more explicitly to the level of investor protection, we undertake a multiple regression analysis. Outside investor protection is measured by the extent of minority shareholder rights as well as the quality of legal enforcement. Our results show that earnings management is negatively related to outsider rights and legal enforcement. These results are robust after controlling for differences in economic development, macroeconomic stability, industry composition and firm characteristics across countries. Tests that account for the endogeneity of investor protection and other institutional factors, such as differences in the accounting rules or ownership concentration, provide further evidence that investor protection is a key determinant of earnings management activity across countries. We also provide direct evidence that earnings management is positively associated with the level of private control benefits enjoyed by insiders.This study builds on recent advances in the corporate governance literature on the role of legal protection in financial market development, ownership structures, and private control benefits (e.g., Shleifer and Vishny, 1997; La Porta et al., 2000a). We extend this literature by presenting evidence that the level of outside investor protection endogenously determines the quality of financial information reported to outsiders. These results add to our understanding of how legal protection influences the agency conflict between outsider investors and controlling insiders. Weak legal protection appears to result in poor-quality financial reporting, which is likely to undermine the development of arm’s length financial markets.Our work also contributes to a growing literature on international differences in firms’ financial reporting. Prior research has analyzed the relation between earnings and stock prices around the world, only implicitly accounting for international differences in institutional factors (e.g., Alford et al., 1993; Joos and Lang, 1994; Land and Lang, 2000). Our results suggest that a country’s legal and institutional environment fundamentally influences the properties of reported earnings. In thisregard, our study complements the recent work by Ball et al. (1999 and 2000), Fan and Wong (1999), Ali and Hwang (2000), and Hung (2001), which documents that various institutional factors explain differences in the price-earnings association across countries. However, the price-earnings association reflects both differences in the pricing mechanism and earnings management. Thus, it is important to understand the effect of institutional factors on reported earnings when examining the relation between stock prices and “managed” earnings.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Specific hypotheses are developed in section 2. Section 3 describes the construction of the earnings management measures. In section 4, we describe the sample and provide descriptive statistics. Empirical tests and results are presented in section 5. Section 6 concludes.2. Earnings management, private control benefits and investor protectionIn this section, we argue that international differences in incentives to misrepresent firm performance arise from a conflict of interest between the firms’ insiders and outsiders, i.e., the incentive of insiders to acquire private control benefits, effectively expropriating outsiders. Recent advances in the corporate governance literature suggest that this agency conflict is widespread around the world and affecte d by a country’s legal structure (e.g., Shleifer and Vishny, 1997; La Porta et al., 1999 and 2000a; Claessens et al., 2000b).2.1. Private control benefits and hiding incentivesA benefit of acquiring control in a firm is that controlling parties, such as majority owners or managers, need not share gains with all the firms’ owners. Examples of private control benefits are wide-ranging. They include the “psychic” value of being in charge and fairly facile forms of profit diversion such as perquisite consumption. At the other end of the spectrum, private control benefits include outright theft or transfer of firm assets to other firms owned by insiders and their family members. The common theme is that some value is enjoyed exclusively by insiders and not shared with non-controlling outsiders.As a consequence, controlling insiders have incentives to conceal their privatecontrol benefits from non-controlling parties, i.e. outside investors (see also Zingales, 1994; Shleifer and Vishny, 1997). If these private control benefits are detected, outsiders are likely to take disciplinary actions against insiders. We therefore argue that managers and controlling owners have an incentive to manage earnings in order to conceal the firm’s true performance from outsider s. For example, insiders can use their financial reporting discretion to overstate earnings and conceal unfavorable earnings realizations (e.g., losses) that would prompt outsider interference. Insiders can also use accounting choices to understate earnings in years of good performance to create reserves for future poor periods; effectively making firm earnings less variable than its economic performance. Thus, insiders can reduce the likelihood of outside intervention by masking their private control benefits through the management of the level and the variability of reported earnings.2.2. The role of investor protectionIn order to limit insiders’ private control benefits, outside investors design contracts that confer them rights to discipline insiders (e.g., to replace managers). However, outsiders must rely on their country’s legal system to enforce these contracts (La Porta, et. al., 1998). Legal systems protect investors’ property rights by enacting and enforcing laws that enable a firm to contract with outside investors. For instance, shareholders are paid dividends because they can vote to replace their firms’ managers and directors, and creditors are repaid because the law enables them to repossess firm assets in case of default. Recent research documents that effective outside investor protection limits insiders’ ability to acquire private control benefits. La Porta et al. (2000b) show that higher dividend payouts are associated with stronger minority shareholder protection. Claessens et al. (2000a), Nenova (2000), and Dyck and Zingales (2002) find that private control benefits are negatively associated with stronger outsider protection and legal enforcement.As effective outside investor protection limits insiders’ ability to acquire private con trol benefits, it also reduces insiders’ need to conceal their activities. We hypothesize that earnings management is more pervasive in countries with weak legal protection of outside investors because insiders enjoy greater private control benefitsand hence have stronger incentives to obfuscate firm performance. Following La Porta et al. (1998), we distinguish between the legal rights accorded to outside investors and the quality of their enforcement. The strength of laws that protect minority rights and their enforcement via the judicial system are complementary legal structures and hence are both hypothesized to be negatively associated with earnings management.2.3. Competing effectsIn the preceding discussion, we argue that outside investor protection is a key primitive that affects insiders’ earnings management activities across countries. A number of other factors are purported to affect earnings quality at the country level. These factors can be broadly categorized as essentially exogenous factors, such as industry composition, and arguably endogenous factors, such as accounting standards and ownership structure. We attempt to explicitly control for exogenous factors, such as industry composition and macroeconomic stability, in our empirical analyses.While accounting standards and ownership structure are important factors correlated with observed earnings management activities, it is unclear whether they are fundamental primitives. In our view, low earnings management, well-functioning markets for outside capital and dispersed ownership patterns are joint outcomes of strong investor protection. Prior work shows that investor protection is the key primitive that explains corporate choices, such as firms’ financing and dividend policies as well as ownership structures (e.g., La Porta et al. 1997, 1999, 2000a). Accounting rules likely reflect the influence of a country’s legal and institutional framework and are therefore endogenous in our analysis. Countries with strong outsider legal protection are expected to enact and enforce accounting and securities laws that limit the manipulation of accounting information reported to outsiders. Consistent with this view, Enriques (2000) argues that UK and the US laws on director self-dealing are stricter and are more reliant on disclosure than those in Germany or Italy. Similarly, d’ Arcy (2000) shows that Anglo-American countries have stricter accounting rules with respect to accounting choices than do Continental-European countries with less effective investor protection. Moreover, theextent to which accounting rules limit insiders’ ability to engage in earnings management depends on how well these rules are enforced. While accounting standards can affect the reliability of financial reports, their impact is diminished in the face of weak legal enforcement. Ultimately, however, the relative importance and impact of various institutional factors on firms’ earnings management activities is an empirical issue. We therefore explore the role of other institutional factors in our empirical analysis.Finally, we note that strong investor protection may potentially encourage earnings management because insiders have greater incentive to hide their private control benefits when faced with higher penalties. Conversely, insiders have little incentive to conceal their diversions if outsiders cannot penalize these activities. We acknowledge this potentially confounding effect. One may argue that the penalty effect is likely to be dominated by international differences in private control benefits as suggested by our primary hypothesis. To resolve this issue, we appeal to the data.译文投资者保护和企业盈余管理一个国际比较克里斯蒂安·洛茨宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院达安尼捷·南达密歇根大学商学院彼得·维索斯麻省理工学院基斯隆管理学院摘要：本文主要考察了外部投资者保护和企业盈余管理之间的关系。

《2024年股权激励、盈余管理与公司绩效》范文

《股权激励、盈余管理与公司绩效》篇一一、引言在当代企业管理中，股权激励、盈余管理和公司绩效之间的关系成为了研究热点。

随着市场经济的不断发展和企业治理结构的不断完善，如何有效利用股权激励来激发员工的积极性和提高公司的整体绩效，同时合理地进行盈余管理以提高公司的经济效益，已经成为企业持续发展的重要课题。

本文将就股权激励、盈余管理与公司绩效的关系进行深入探讨，并就相关问题提出对策建议。

二、股权激励与公司绩效股权激励作为一种长期激励机制，通过将公司股权分配给员工，使员工成为公司的股东，从而激发员工的积极性和创造力，提高公司的整体绩效。

股权激励的实施，有助于增强员工的归属感和责任感，使员工更加关注公司的长远发展。

同时，股权激励还可以吸引和留住优秀人才，提高公司的核心竞争力。

然而，股权激励的实施并非一蹴而就。

在实施过程中，企业需要充分考虑公司的实际情况和员工的特点，制定合理的股权激励方案。

此外，股权激励的实施还需要与公司的治理结构、企业文化等因素相匹配，以确保其发挥最大的效用。

三、盈余管理与公司绩效盈余管理是企业为了提高经济效益而采取的一系列管理措施。

合理的盈余管理可以帮助企业更好地实现经营目标，提高公司的整体绩效。

然而，过度的盈余管理可能导致企业财务报表失真，损害企业的信誉和形象，甚至引发法律风险。

因此，企业在进行盈余管理时，需要遵循法律法规和会计准则，确保财务报表的真实性和公正性。

同时，企业还需要根据自身的实际情况和市场需求，制定合理的盈余管理策略，以实现企业的经济效益和社会效益的双重目标。

四、股权激励与盈余管理的关系股权激励与盈余管理在公司治理中具有密切的关系。

一方面，股权激励的实施需要以公司的经济效益为基础，而盈余管理则是提高公司经济效益的重要手段。

另一方面，合理的盈余管理需要考虑股权激励的因素，以确保公司的长期发展和员工的利益。

因此，企业在制定股权激励和盈余管理策略时，需要综合考虑公司的实际情况、市场需求、员工特点等因素，以实现公司的长期发展和员工的利益最大化。

股权激励外文翻译(可编辑)

股权激励外文翻译（可编辑）股权激励外文翻译外文翻译原文EQUITY BASED INCENTIVESMaterial Source: Society Professionals Author: Richard DStock Incentive System SIS, is a system a company adopts to incent managers or ordinary employees. In this system, to incent managers or ordinary employees, a company will make them become stockowners by assigning a sum of stocks or stock options to them. Stock Incentive System Research on Outstanding Achievement, is a research base on the existing Stock Incentive System. This research emphasizes on analyzing the pertinency between system structure and outstanding achievement. By doing the research, the author tried to set up a pertinence relation between practicing SIS and carrying out outstanding achievement to enhance the efficiency of a Stock Incentive System. In this thesis, the research is focused on the problems of outstanding achievement deviation, capital resource for buying options or stocks, and short sight of managers. A lot of data and cases have been adopted to find out the bugs from the existing SIS and set up a new model to enhance the efficiencyof the SIS. In this thesis, the author demonstrates the following ideas.1. For the weakpertinence between stock price and outstanding achievement under the circumstance of the capital market, it is strongly recommended that the stocks from SIS not come into the market, or it will be inefficient for incenting managers, further more, it may cause risks of deceiving to incent market prices, which will ruin the company and share holders utmostly. Then how to price the incentive stocks, and how can the stocks be encashed? In chapter two, a pricing model of EVA has been set up to answer the questions. In this model, there is linearity pertinence between the stock price and EVA. While priced by this model, the increment of stocks get an only resource of outstanding achievement made by managers, which will incent managers to work hard to increase stock price. In this model, we can also find out that the capital resource for stock encashment is exercise capital and EVA. 2.An favorable exercise capital resource may be built up on capital bonus, which will enhance the efficient of SIS by forming a benign incentive circle system. This system is named Capital Bonus Exercising System. Since the capital bonus is the only resource for exercise, and we know that managers’ outstanding achievement is the only resource for capital bonus, more outstanding achievement cause more bonus, more bonus cause faster and bigger amount exercise, more exercise cause bigger share hold for managers, and bigger share hold will cause more income, which will incent managers to work harder, then a benign incentive circle system is formed. 3. Since an SIS is used to get a long-termincenting, the managers’ stock holding period must be quite long, anda rule of exercising and encashing batch by batch must be prescribed. Firstly, the holding period must be quite long to realize long-term incentive function of SIS, or it will be not better than a cash bonus. For the incentive function will vanish once encashed, the stock holding term must be set long. Secondly, options or stocks must be exercised or encashed batch by batch in the holding period. Since the managers are with cash-predilection, in the other word, short-term income favoritism, if managers cannot get income before the end of the long term, their short-term income favoritism cannot be fulfilled, and then incentive function of SIS will be weakened. To get a harmony between long-term and short-term incenting, options or stocks must be exercised or encashed batch by batch. Furthermore, this prescription dividing managers stock income into batches will prevent managers from risks of short sight, and then the company can escape from disasters like Enron and WorldCom ever met. This thesis is a pilot study on Stock Incentive System based on outstanding achievement. It insists that practising a Stock Incentive System should be able to incent managers to carry out outstanding achievement and the incentive term should be quite long. And to getthese effects, the key issues are to set up EVA models and built up a balance between short-term and long-term incenting. And most of the author’sefforts are being taken to settle these two issues.The use of equity as a key component of executive compensation is probably the most difficult and controversial issue or manage by the compensation committee of a corporate hoard of directors. In theory, equity-based compensation should drive management to behave in a manner consistent with the wishes of the shareholders. This column focuses onthe three most prevalent equity awards.Nonqualified stock options NSOs are by and large the most commonequity incentive arrangement Executives may buy stock at a specifiedprice grant for a given period of time. Compensation derived from the appreciation in the stock price between the option grant date and the option exercise date is taxed or ordinary income tax rates. NSOs can be exercised in any sequence.There is no taxable income to the executive triggered by the option grant Appreciation from the grate price is taxed at ordinary income tax rates upon exercise. For example, a grant price of $50 and an exercise price of $75 create ordinary income of $25. The company is required to withhold an executive's taxes at exercise. This can be a problem because the exercise of the option itself does not generate cash for the executive. When the executive sells the stock, any future appreciation from the exercise price to the sale price is taxed at capital gain rates.There is no tax deduction for the company as a result of granting an option. The company does receive a tax deduction equal to theexecutive's ordinary income when the option is exercised. There isno impact on the company from any subsequent sale of the stork by the executive.Advantageous to users of nonqualified stock options is the idea that such arrangements are an attempt to align executive interests with shareholder interests. There are no limitations on the amount that may be exercised nonqualified options are less dilutive than incentive stock options and the nonqualified variety offer potential for long term appreciation as the company grows. The disadvantage of a nonqualified arrangement is that executive investment is required at two different intervals-First, to acquire the stock and second, to satisfy the tax liability. Also ,NSOs dilute earnings per share through cowman stack equivalents.There is no charge to corporate earnings unless the option price is variable or is less than 100% of fair market value on the grant date, or unless the company has elected m account for stock options under FASB 123. Where FASB 123 is used, there is a charge to earnings that is calculated based on the estimated fair market value at grant dare using an option pricing mode!Incentive stock options LSOs are option plans that meet the guidelines of IRC Sec. 422. They must be granted to employees with an exercise period not to exceed 10 years. The grant price cannot be for lessthan fair market value at the time that the option is granted, andthe option cannot be transferable. ISOs with an aggregate value of$1 000000 cannot be granted to be first exercisable in any given year.The executive incurs a tax liability only when stack obtainedthrough an ISO is sold, and not when the option is exercised. Thus,gains are treated at capital gain rates, provided the executive does not dispose of the stock until the later of two years from the grant of the option or one year from receipt of the stack. As ordinary income tax rates increase, ISOs become more attractive to executives because thetax is deferred until the stock is sold.The company receives no tax deduction upon exercise, which can make ISOs an expensive equity vehicle to offer from a company point ofview .However, if the company is in a low effective tax bracket, thelack of tax deductibility may still be a fair trade for the benefit provided to the executive.A major ISO advantage is char the executive has control over the timing of the taxable event sale of stock and not exercise of the option. This provides the executive an opportunity to do better long-term tax planning, including the ability to defer income without taxation and possibly pay taxes at the lower capital gains rates. From a company perspective, the main disadvantage of an ISO arrangement is the lack ofa company tax deduction when an executive exercises an ISO. From theexecutive's point of view there are two disadvantages. The first one is the holding period of iS0 shares: the longer of two years from grantor one year from the receipt of the stuck in order to receive capital gains treatment .The second disadvantage is that the executive islimited to being granted ISOs of up to $I 00,000 that are exercisablefor the first time in any given calendar year.Finally, ISOs that have not been exercised are considered common stock equivalents and are factored into the determination of earnings per share, and they can have a dilutive cost impact on the company's earnings per share and balance sheet if the stock price appreciates.Restricted stock is an outright grant of shares to executives. This outright transfer of stock has restrictions as to the sale, transfer and pledging of the granted shares that lapse over a period of time .The restrictions can be for three or five years or for whatever time period is desired by the company. As the restrictions lapse, the executive has an unfettered right to sell, assign, pledge, encumber or do whatever he or she desires with the shares. However, if the executive terminates employment all unvested shares are forfeited. During the restriction period, the executive will receive the dividends on the restricted shares and also be able to vote the shares.To the executive, no individual income tax liability occurs when the restricted stock is granted. As restricted lapse, the current market value of vested shares is taxed as ordinary income. Dividends received during the restriction period or otherwise are taxed as ordinary income.译文股权激励资料来源::金融协会作者:Richard D.股权激励制度,是指企业采取授予管理人员或普通员工在未来一段时间内以某一事先规定的价格购买本公司一定比例股票的权利,或者直接授予管理人员或普通员工本公司一定比例的股权,从而试图达到激励管理人员或普通员工目的的制度选择。

员工激励理论外文文献及翻译.

员工激励理论外文文献及翻译员工激励理论外文文献及翻译One-to-one-management companiesare run -- in a timely inversion of John Adams's ideal -- as organizations of men (and women), not of laws. Nonetheless, a few laws, or at least cultural traits, appear to govern many such organizations. Together those traits create an environment where employees' needs are known, sometimes anticipated, and served, justas customers' needs are known, sometimes anticipated, and served in CRM-focused organizations. What follows is a look at the rules by which one-to-one-management companies operate[2].3.2 It's All in the DetailHow do you build morale and a sense of corporate responsibility? In surprisingly small ways. Standing in the kitchen at Eze Castle Software, CEO Sean McLaughlin watches as one of his programmers sets milk and cookies on a table. It's 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. "Hang on, Parvathy," McLaughlin says to the employee as he opens the refrigerator door and pulls out an apple pie. "Put this out, too." When Parvathy is done in the kitchen, she flips some switches, andthe lights flicker all over the fifth floor. Almost instantly, programmers leave their cubicles and make a beeline for thekitchen.Then Parvathy jogs up a staircase and flashes the lights on the sixth floor. Account managers, salespeople, and assorted techies come downstairs and join their colleagues in the kitchen. When they arrive, McLaughlin is at the center of the steadily building crowd, dishing out the pie. Around him conversations spring up between colleagues who work in different departments. The topics range from work to social life to politics. Ten minutes later the lights flash again and it's back to work for the 90 employees in the Boston office of Eze.What's so remarkable about the staff of a developer of securities-trading software with $13 million in revenues taking daily milk-and-cookies breaks? Not much -- until you consider that the practice is part of a cultural shift engineered by the CEO, a shift that has profoundly changed the way he and his employees relate toone another. Perhaps more significant, the changes have affected how employees deal with the myriad little details that keep the six-year-old company grounded.原文请找腾讯3249114六-维^论,文.网Eze's transformation began last year, when McLaughlin realized to his chagrin that his once small and collegial company had -- because of accelerated growth -- begun acting like a large corporation. His employees no longer knew one another, and he himself was increasingly vague about who some of the new faces were. "In the early days I could get to know everyone," saysMcLaughlin.However, the CEO was most annoyed by the fact that his employees -- both old and new -- were beginning to behave with large-company sloppiness rather than with start-up frugality. "Back when we were small, if someone sent a FedEx, we all knew how much that was costing the company," McLaughlin says. He recalls noticing that things were changing when one employee approved paying a contractor $100 a month to water the company's five plants. Then there were rising charges from the company's Internet service provider because of excessive traffic on the corporate T1 line. The cause? Employees were downloading MP3 files to listen to music during the workday. It frustrated McLaughlin that employees weren't taking responsibilityfor their actions and for the ways in which those actions affected the company's bottom line[2].But last summer two things happened that spurred McLaughlin to make some changes.First, the Boston office lost both of its administrative assistants. One assistant quit and the other left a few weeks later. The two had stocked the supply room, sorted the mail, and welcomed visitors. The dual departures wreaked havoc. "The kitchen was out of milk, we didn't have any pens in the supply cabinet, the reception area looked like crap," McLaughlin says.Then came the World Trade Center attacks. Though McLaughlin had long been brooding on how to reverse Eze's fat-cat habits, he had yet to act. He says that 9-11, and the "what are my priorities" thinking it engendered, "created an environment where it was easy for me to initiate a change."The change he had in mind was inspired by a visit to his daughter's kindergarten class. There he saw how the teacher divided the cleanup tasks among the children by posting a rotating "chore wheel." McLaughlin thought the wheel was just the thing to clean up the mess and teach his employees a little corporate responsibility. But he also wanted to institute something that would help improve camaraderie. That's where another kindergarten institution, the milk-and-cookies breaks, came in. "I wanted to build relationships among the employees, to make them feel more company morale," he says.上一页[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 下一页。

盈余管理和盈利质量外文文献及翻译

盈余管理和盈利质量外文文献及翻译摘要从犯罪现场调查员的视角来看盈余管理的检测，启蒙了早期对盈余管理的研究和它的近亲：盈利质量。

Ball和Shivakumar的著作（2008在会计和经济学杂志上出版的《首次公开发行时的盈利质量》）和Teoh et al .的著作(1998在金融杂志53期上刊登的《盈利管理和首次公开发行后的市场表现》)被用来阐释将犯罪现场调查的七个部分应用于盈利管理的研究。

关键词:市场效率盈余管理盈利质量会计欺诈1、引言在诸多会计和金融的研究课题中,可能没有比盈余管理更具有刺激性的议题。

为什么?我认为这是因为这个主题明确涉及了潜在的不法行为、恶作剧、冲突、间谍活动以及一种神秘感。

正如Healy和Wahlen在1999年(Schipper在1989也下过类似的定义)定义道:“盈余管理的发生是在管理者针对财务报表和交易建立，运用判断力来改变财务报告之时。

盈余管理要么会在公司潜在的经营表现上误导一些利益相关者，要么影响合同结果，这取决于会计报告数字。

”简而言之，有人做伤害别人的事情。

审计人员、监管机构、投资者和研究者们试图找到这些违法者并解开这个谜团,而这个谜团可能会演变成涉及欺诈(或犯罪,在此使用解决犯罪谜团的隐喻)的事件。

如果我们将盈余管理看成是一个潜在的欺诈性(犯罪性)活动,那么我们可以在利用比解决神秘谋杀案的福尔摩斯,或犯罪现场调查(CSI)更现代的条件下，考虑对盈余管理的探查。

这样的调查涉及到以下七个要素：一场犯罪是否已经实施，嫌疑人的责任，使用的凶器,犯罪活动的受害者,犯罪的动机，开展行动的机会和替代性解释。

替代性解释是指除了欺诈或犯罪活动，整个事件的起因。

这个起因能够证实在目击证据的基础上得出欺诈或犯罪的结论将是错误的。

我在讨论破解盈余管理的谜团的各种要素时，所举的例子主要来自Ball和Shivakumar(2008)和Teoh et al.(1998)。

(这些要素显然是相互关联的,以下的讨论中也有一些不可避免的重复)。

股权激励与盈余管理外文文献翻译2014年译文4500字

股权激励与盈余管理外文文献翻译2014年译文4500字文献出处：Scott Duellman. Equity Incentives and Earnings Management[J]. Account. Public Policy ,2014(32):495–517.原文Equity Incentives and Earnings ManagementScott DuellmanaAbstractPrior studies suggest that equity incentives inherently have both an interest alignment effect and an opportunistic financial reporting effect. Using three distinct proxies for earnings management we find evidence consistent with the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increasing as monitoring intensity increases (decreases). Furthermore, using the accrual-based earnings management and meet/beat analyst forecast models we find that the opportunistic financial reporting effect of equity incentives dominates the incentive alignments effect for firms with low monitoring intensity. Using proxies for real earnings management, we find that the incentive alignment effect dominates the opportunistic financial reporting effect for high and moderate monitoring intensity firms. However, for low monitoring intensity firms the opportunistic reporting effect mitigates, but does not completely offset, the benefits of the incentive alignment effect. Overall, these findings are consistent with the level of monitoring affecting the relation between equity incentives and earnings management.1. IntroductionClassical agency theory suggests that equity incentives align managers’interests with shareholders’in terests (see forexample, Mirlees, 1976, Jensen and Meckling, 1976 and Holmstrom, 1979). However, recent theoretical papers suggest that equity incentives may also motivate managers to boost short term stock prices by manipulating accounting numbers (see for example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk, 2003 and Goldman and Slezak, 2006). Empirical studies examining the effect of equity incentives on earnings management, a proxy for opportunistic reporting, yield mixed results. For example, Gao and Shrieves, 2002,Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Weber, 2006, and Cornett et al. (2008) document a positive relation between equity incentives and accrual-based earnings management; while Hribar and Nichols (2007) find that after controlling for cash flow volatility the relation between equity incentives and earnings management becomes insignificant.1 Furthermore, Cohen et al. (2008) find a negative relation between equity incentives and real earnings management. Thus, whether equity incentives are associated with opportunistic financial reporting is an open empirical question that warrants further study.We view equity incentives as one element of the firm’s governancestructure and argue that equity incentives inherently have both an interest alignment effect and an opportunistic financial reporting effect. We investigate how the relation between equity incentives and earnings management changes with respect to the intensity of firms’monitoring systems. More specifically, we expect that when monitoring intensity is relatively high, equity incentives will have more of an incentive alignment effect leading to lower earnings management in comparison with low monitoring intensity firms. Conversely, when monitoring intensity is relatively low, equity incentives will have more of anopportunistic financial reporting effect leading to higher earnings management in comparison to high monitoring intensity firms. Thus, we predict that the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increases as monitoring intensity increases (decreases).Using a sample over the time period 2001–2007, we proxy for earnings management using three different measures common in the literature: (i) absolute abnormal accruals, (ii) real earnings management measures, and (iii) the likelihood of meeting/beating an analyst forecast. We measure equity incentives, in a manner consistent with prior studies such as Bergstresser and Philippon (2006) as the percentage of total CEO compensation for the year that would come from a 1% increase in the company’s stock as of the end of the previous fiscal year.To measure the intensity of monitoring mechanisms, we focus on threemechanisms that are most directly involved in monitoring managers’financial reporting decisions (board of directo rs, external auditors, and institutional investors). We identify six board characteristics, one auditor characteristic, and two institutional investor characteristics that could potentially affect monitoring effectiveness. Using principal component analysis we collapse these nine characteristics into two monitoring intensity measures (principal components) which capture 51.1% of the variance in these characteristics.2 We classify firms as high (low) monitoring intensity firms if both monitoring intensity measures are above (below) median values while firms with only one monitoring factor above the median are classified as moderate monitoring intensity firms. We use this approach as different monitoring attributes may be substitutes or complements to oneanother and principal component analysis effectively reduces the redundancy in these variables.We regress our measures of earnings management on lagged equity incentives, monitoring intensity classifications (moderate and low), the interaction between them, and a set of control variables. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, we find evidence consistent with the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increasing as monitoring intensity increases (decreases) across all three earnings management measures. Second, in tests using accrual based earnings management and meet/beat analyst forecasts, we find that forlow monitoring intensity firms, the opportunistic reporting effect dominates the incentive alignment effect of equity incentives; and equity incentives and earnings management are unrelated when monitoring intensity is moderate or high.Third, with respect to real earnings management, we find a negative relation between equity incentives and real earnings management for high and moderate monitoring intensity firms. Furthermore, for low intensity monitoring firms the negative relation is mitigated, but not completely offset, by the incentive alignment effect. In contrast with our abnormal accrual results, these findings suggest that the incentive alignment effect dominates the opportunistic financial reporting effect with respect to real earnings management. A potential explanation for these findings is that both monitors and managers are aware of the higher potential long-term costs of real earnings management and thus tend to avoid cuts to discretionary expenses (research and development) or increase production.Our primary contribution to the literature on the relationbetween equity incentives and earnings management is that we provide evidence on how this relation varies with the level of oversight by monitoring mechanisms. This is in contrast with most prior studies in this area that either overlook the effects of monitoring (or governance) mechanisms or simply use one or more governance characteristics as control variables (Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Cornett et al., 2008).3 However, a prior study by Weber (2006) also investigates the effects of governance on the relation between CEO wealth sensitivity and earnings management using a random sample of 410 S&P 1500 firms. Weber (2006) finds that CEO wealth sensitivity is positively related to abnormal accruals and that governance does not significantly affect this relation. Weber (2006) defines monitoring intensity by only using the factor that explains the most variance from the principle component analysis. However, this methodology could misclassify firms because monitoring has multiple dimensions and using only one factor ignores the presence of substitutive monitoring mechanisms. Furthermore, in contrast to Weber (2006), using two monitoring intensity factors, we find that monitoring intensity has a significant effect on the relation between equity incentives and earnings management. Additionally, our study uses a broader sample of firms, a longer sample period, and multiple proxies for earnings management.In addition to our primary contribution, we add to the literature in two ways. First, while prior studies on equity incentives and accrual-based earnings management document that the results are dependent on controlling for operating cash flow volatility, we show that for firms with low monitoring, equity incentives are positively related to accrual-based earningsmanagement even after controlling for operating cash flow volatility. Second, we add to the literature by providing evidence on theeffects of monitoring intensity on the relation between equity incentives and real earnings management. To our knowledge, the only other study that investigates the relation between equity incentives and real earnings management is Cohen et al. (2008).4However, Cohen et al. (2008) do not consider the mitigating effects of monitoring intensity on this relation.An important limitation of our study (and other work in this area more generally) is that equity incentives and other governance mechanisms are likely to be chosen endogenously with the firm’s other corporate policies, structures, and features. Thus, while we attempt to mitigate the effects of endogeneity, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that our results could be affected by endogeneity bias.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a discussion of prior research and our hypothesis development. Section 3 presents our research design choices and their rationale. The evidence is presented in Section 4 and the conclusion in Section 5.2. Prior research and hypothesis development2.1. Prior researchEquity incentives are an important part of firms’governa nce structures that are used to align managers’ interests with shareholder interests (Mirlees, 1976, Jensen and Meckling, 1976 and Holmstrom, 1979). However, recent studies suggest that they also motivate managers tofocus on boosting stock price in the short term (see for example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk, 2003 and Goldman and Slezak,2006).Prior studies document mixed evidence on the effect of equity incentives on earnings management. On the one hand, Gao and Shrieves, 2002, Cheng and Warfield, 2005, Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Weber, 2006, and Cornett et al. (2008) find that equity incentives are positively related to the absolute value of abnormal accruals. On the other hand, Hribar and Nichols (2007) demonstrate that findings of earnings management in studies that are based on absolute abnormal accruals no longer hold once controls for cash flow volatility are added. Furthermore, in contrast with studies documenting opportunistic effects of equity incentives, Cohen et al. (2008) find a negative relation between real earnings management methods and stock ownership, CEO bonuses, and unexercisable options consistent with incentive alignment effects dominating opportunistic effects. Armstrong et al. (2010a, 226) summarize the findings on the relation between equity incentives and accounting irregularities of all types (including accrual based earnings management) by stating that “no conclusive results have emerged from the literature.”Thus, whether equity incentives result in earnings management remains an open question.2.2. Equity incentives and other governance mechanismsWe view equity incentives as one element of a firm’s overall governancestructure. Furthermore, we note that equity incentives have both an incentive alignment effect as well as an opportunistic financial reporting effect. The incentive alignment effect follows from agency theory which suggests that managerial stock ownership align their interests with shareholders (Jensen andMeckling, 1976). The opportunistic financial reporting effect arises because managers with high equity incentives are motivated to overstate accounting performance and boost stock prices in the short-run. For example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk (2003) show that when managers can sell shares in the short-run, they will be motivated to misreport performance and misreporting will be an increasing function of the fraction of management-owned shares that could be sold (also see Goldman and Slezak, 2006 and Ronen et al., 2006).If firms choose their governance structures to maximize value, and optimally use equity incentives in conjunction with other governance mechanisms, there will be either a negative relation or no relation between equity incentives and earnings management. Intuitively, any opportunistic effects of equity incentives would be exactly offset by other governance or monitoring mechanisms. However, adjusting governance structures is costly so it is unclear whether most firms end up with optimal equity incentives and monitoring mechanisms in a dynamic environment. Deviations from optimal monitoring raises the possibility that under some conditions the opportunistic effects of equity incentives may dominate or mitigate the。

股权激励外文文献【中英对照】

外文文献原文The Diffusion of Equity Incentive Plans in Italian Listed Companies1.INTRODUCTIONPast studies have brought to light the dissimilarities in the pay packages ofmanagers in Anglo-Saxon countries as compared with other nations (e.g., Bebchuk,Fried and Walker, 2002; Chef?ns and Thomas, 2004; Zattoni, 2007). In the UK and,above all in the US, remuneration encompasses a variety of components, and shortand long term variable pay carries more weight than elsewhere (Conyon and Murphy,2000). In other countries, however, fixed wages have always been the main ingredient-term pay has become morein top managers’ pay schemes. Over time, variable shortsubstantial and the impact of fringe benefits has gradually grown. Notwithstanding,incentives linked to reaching medium to long-term company goals have never beenwidely used (Towers Perrin, 2000).In recent years, however, pay packages of managers have undergone anappreciable change as variable pay has increased considerably, even outside the USand the UK. In particular, managers in most countries have experienced an increase inthe variable pay related to long-term goals. Within the context of this general trendtoward medium and long-term incentives, there is a pronounced tendency to adoptplans involving stocks or stock options (Towers Perrin, 2000; 2005). The drivers ofthe diffusion of long term incentive plans seem to be some recent changes i n theinstitutional and market environment at the local and global levels. Particularlyimportant triggers of the convergence toward the US pay paradigm are both marketoriented drivers, such as the evolving share ownership patterns or the internationalization of the labor market, and law-oriented drivers, such as corporate ortax regulation (Chef?ns and Thomas, 2004).Driven by these changes in theinstitutional and market environment, we observe a global trend toward the “Americanization of international pay practices,” characterized by high incentives and very lucrative compensation mechanisms (e.g., Chef?ns, 2003; Chef?ns and Thomas,2004).Ironically, the spread of the US pay paradigm around the world happens when itis hotly debated at home. In particular, the critics are concerned with both the level ofexecutive compensation packages and the use of equity incenti ve plans (Chef?ns andThomas, 2004). Critics stressed that US top managers, and particularly the CEOs,receive very lucrative compensation packages. The ’80s and ’90s saw an increasing-and-?le workers. Thanks to this effect,disparity between CEO’s pay and that of ranktheir direct compensation has become a hundred times that of an average employee(Hall and Liebman, 1998). The main determinants of the increasing level of CEOs’　ntsand executives’ compensation are annual bonuses and, above all, stock option gra(Conyon and Murphy, 2000). Stock option plans have recently been criticized byscholars and public opinion because they characteristically are too generous andvalue (Bebchuk et al., 2002;symptomatic of a managerial extraction of the firm’sBebchuk and Fried, 2006).In light of these recent events and of the increased tendency to adopt equityincentive plans, this paper aims at understanding the reasons behind the disseminationof stock option and stock granting plans outside the US and the UK.The choice toinvestigate this phenomenon in Italy relies on the following arguments. First, the largemajority of previous studies analyze the evolution of executive compensation andequity incentive plans in the US and, to a smaller extent, in the UK. Second,ownership structure and governance p ractices in continental European countries aresubstantially different from the ones in Anglo-Saxon countries. Third, continentalEuropean countries, and Italy in particular, almost ignored the use of theseinstruments un til the end of the ’90s.Our goal is to compare the explanatory power of three competing views on thediffusion of equity incentive plans: 1) the optimal contracting view, which states thatcompensation packages are designed to minimize agency costs between managers and shareholders (Jensen and Murphy, 1990); 2) the rent extraction view, which states thatpowerful insiders may influence the pay process for their own benefit (Bebchuk et al.,2002); and 3) the perceived-cost view (Hall and Murphy, 2003), which states thatcompanies may favor some compensation schemes for their (supposed or real)cost advantages.To this purpose, we conducted an empirical study on the reasons w hy ItalianTo gain alisted companies adopted equity incentive plans since the end of the ’90s. deep understanding of the phenomenon, w e collected data and information both onthe evolution of the national institutional environment in the last decade and on thediffusion and the characteristics (i.e., technical aspects and objectives) of equityincentive plans adopted by Italian listed companies in 1999 and 2005. We used bothlogit models and difference-of-means statistical techniques to analyze data. Ourresults show that: 1) firm size, and not its ownership structure, is a determinant of the adoption of these instruments; 2) these plans are not extensively used to extract company value, although a few cases suggest this possibility; and 3) plans’　characteristics are consistent with the ones defined by tax law to receive special fiscal treatment.Our findings contribute to the development of the literature on both the rationalesbehind the spreading of equity incentive schemes and the diffusion of new governance practices. They show, in fact, that equity incentive plans have been primarily adoptedto take advantage o f large tax benefits, and that in some occasions they may havebeen used by controlling shareholders to extract company value at the expense ofminority shareholders. In other words, our findings suggest that Italian listed companies adopted equity incentive plans to perform a subtle form of decoupling. Onandthe one hand, they declared that plans were aimed to align shareholders’　managers’ interests and incentive value creation. On the other hand, thanks to the lackof transparency and previous knowledge about these instruments, companies usedthese mechanisms to take advantage of tax benefits and sometimes also to distribute alarge amount of value to some powerful individuals. These results support a symbolic perspective on corporate governance, according to which the introduction of equityincentive plans please stakeholders –for their implicit alignment of interests andincentive to value creation –without implying a substantive improvement of governance practices.2.Corporate Governance in Italian Listed CompaniesItalian companies are traditionally controlled by a large blockholder (Zattoni,1999). Banks and other financial institutions do not own large shareholdings and donot exert a significant influence on governance of large companies, at least as far asthey are able to repay their financial debt (Bianchi, Bianco and Enriques, 2001).Institutional investors usually play a marginal role because of their limited shareholding, their strict connections with Italian banks, and a regulatory environmentthat does not offer incentives for their activism. Finally, the stock market is relativelysmall and undeveloped, and the market for corporate control is almost absent (Bianco,2001). In short, the Italian governance system can b e described as a system of “weak managers, s trong blockholders, and unprotected minority shareholders” (Melis, 2000: 354).The board of directors is traditionally one tier, but a shareholders’　generalmeeting must appoint also a board of statutory auditors as well whose main task is topublished inmonitor the directors’ performance (Melis, 2000). Further, some studiesunder the relevant influence of largethe ’90s showed that the board of directors wasblockholders. Both inside and outside directors were in fact related to controllingshareholders by family or business ties (Melis, 1999;2000; Molteni, 1997).Consistent with this picture, fixed wages have been the main ingredient of topremuneration, and incentive schemes l inked to reaching medium to longmanagers’　term company goals have never been widely used (Melis, 1999). Equity incentiveschemes adopted by Italian companies issue stocks to all employees unconditionallyfor the purpose of improving the company atmosphere and stabilizing the share valueon the Stock Exchange. Only very few can be compared with stock option plans in thetrue sense of the term. Even in this case, however, directors and top managers wererarely evaluated through stock returns, because of the supposed limited ability of theItalian stock market to measure firm’s performance (Melis, 1999).3.The Evolution of Italian Institutional ContextThe institutional context in Italy has evolved radically in the last decade, creatingthe possibility for the dissemination of equity incentive plans. The main changes regarded the development of commercial law, the introduction and updating of thecode of good governance, the issue of some reports encouraging the use of equity incentive plans, and the evolution of the tax law (Zattoni, 2006).Concerning the national law and regulations, some reforms in the commerciallaw (1998, 2003, and 2005) and the introduction (1999) and update (2002) of thenational code of good governance contributed to the improvement of the corporate governance of listed companies (Zattoni, 2006). Financial markets and corporate lawreforms improved the efficiency of the Stock Exchange and created an institutionalEnriques, environment more favorable to institutional investors’ activism (Bianchi and2005). At the same time the introduction and update of the code of good governance contributed to the improvement of governance practices at the board level. Thesereforms did not produce an immediate effect on governance practices of Italian listed companies, although they contributed to improve, slowly and with some delay, their governance standards (Zattoni, 2006).Beyond the evolution of governance practices, some changes in the institutional environment directly affected the diffusion and the characteristics of equity incentiveplans. Both the white paper of the Ministry of the Industry and Foreign Commerceand the code of good governance issued by the national Stock Exchange invited companies to implement equity incentive plans in order to develop a value creationculture in Italian companies. Furthermore, in 1997 fiscal regulations were enacted allowing a tax exemption on the shares received through an equity incentive plan. According to the new regulation, which took effect on January 1, 1998, issuance ofnew stocks to employees by an employer or another company belonging to the samegroup did not represent compensation in kind for income tax purposes (Autuori 2001).In the following years, the evolution of tax rules reduced the generous benefits associated with the use of equity incentive plans, but also the new rules continued tofavor the dissemination of these plans.Driven by these changes in the institutional context, equity incentive plansattoni,became widely diffused among I talian listed companies at the end of the ’90s (Z2006). Ironically, the diffusion of these instruments – in Italy and in other countries,such as Germany (Bernhardt, 1999), Spain (Alvarez Perez and Neira Fontela, 2005),and Japan (Nagaoka, 2005) – took place when they were strongly debated in the USfor their unpredicted consequences a nd the malpractices associated with their use(Bebchuk et al., 2002).4.The Rationales Explaining the Adoption of Equity IncentivePlansEquity incentive plans are a main component of executive compensation in theUS. Their use is mostly founded on the argument that they give managers an incentiveinterests by providing a direct link between theirto act in the shareholders’compensation and firm stock-price performance (Jensen and Murphy, 1990). Beyondthat, equity incentive plans also have other positive features, as they may contribute tothe attraction and retention of highly motivated employees, encourage beneficiaries totake risks, and reduce direct cash expenses f or executive compensation (Hall andMurphy, 2003).Despite all their positive features, the use of equity incentive plans isincreasingly debated in the US. In particular, critics question their presumedeffectiveness in guaranteeing the alignment of executives’ and shareholders’ in They point out that these instruments may be adopted to fulfill other objectives, suchas to extract value at shareholders expenses (e.g., Bebchuk and Fried, 2006), or evento achieve a (real or perceived) reduction in compensation costs (e.g., Murphy, 2002).In summary, the actual debate indicates that three different rationales may explain the dissemination and the specific features of equity incentive plans:1) the optimalcontracting view (Jensen and Murphy,1990 );2) the rent extraction view (Bebchuk etal., 2002); and 3)the perceived-cost view (Hall and Murphy, 2003).According to the optimal contracting view, executive compensation packagesare designed to minimize agency costs between top managers (agents) andshareholders (principals) (Jensen a nd Meckling, 1976). The boards of directors areeffective governance mechanisms aimed at maximizing shareholder value and the topmanagement’s compensation scheme is designed to serve this objective (Fama andJensen, 1983). Providing managers with equity incentive plans may mitigatemanagerial self-interest by aligning the interests of managers and shareholders(Jensen and Meckling, 1976). Following the alignment rationale, equity incentivesmay improve firm performance, as managers are supposed to work for their own and benefit (Jensen and Murphy, 1990). In short, these instruments are shareholders’　designed to align the interests of managers with those of shareholders, and to motivatethe former to pursue the creation of share value (Jensen and Murphy, 1990).4.1 the principle of equity incentiveManagers and shareholders is a delegate agency relationship managersoperating in assets under management, shareholders entrusted. But in fact, in theagency relationship, the contract between the asymmetric information, shareholdersand managers a re not completely dependent on the manager's m oral self-discipline.The pursuit of the goals of shareholders and managers is inconsistent. Shareholderswant to maximize the equity value of its holdings of managers who want to maximizetheir own utility, so the "moral hazard" exists between the shareholders and managers,through incentive and restraint mechanisms to guide and limit the behavior ofmanagers.In a different way of incentives, wages based on the manager's qualificationconditions and company, the target performance of a predetermined relatively stablein a certain period of time, a very close relationship with the company's targetperformance. Bonuses generally super-goal performance assessment to determine thepart of the revenue manager performance is closely related with the company'sshort-term performance, but with the company's long-term value of the relationship isnot obvious, the manager for short-term financial indicators at the expense of thecompany long-term interests. But from the point of view of shareholders' investment,he was more concerned with long-term increase in the value of the company. Especially for growth-oriented companies, the value of the manager's more to reflect the increase in the company's long-term value, rather than just short-term financialindicators.In order to make the managers are concerned about the interests of shareholders need to make the pursuit of the interests of managers and shareholders as consistent as possible. In this regard, the equity incentive is a better solution. By making the manager holds an equity interest in a certain period of time, to enjoy the value-added benefits of equity risk in a certain way, and to a certain extent, you can make managers more concerned about the long-term value of the company in the business process. Equity incentive incentive and restraint to prevent short-term behavior of the manager, to guide its long-term behavior.4.2 Equity Incentive mode(1) The performance of stockRefers to a more reasonable performance targets at the beginning of the year, if the incentive object to the end to achieve the desired goal, the company granted a certain number of shares or to extract a reward fund to buy company stock. The flowof performance shares realized that usually have the time and number restrictions. Another performance of the stock in the operation and role relative to similar long-term incentive performance units and performance stock difference is that the performance shares granted stock, performance units granted cash.(2) stock optionsRefers to a company the right to grant incentive target incentive object can purchase a certain amount of the outstanding shares of the Company at a predetermined price within a specified period may be waived this right. The exerciseof stock options have the time and limit the number of cash and the need to motivate the objects on their own expenditure for the exercise. Some of our listed companies in the application of virtual stock options are a combination of phantom stock and stock options, the Company granted incentive object is a virtual stock options, incentive objects rights, phantom stock.(3) virtual stockThat the company awarded the incentive target a virtual stock incentive objectswhich enjoy a certain amount of the right to dividends and stock appreciation gains, but not ownership, without voting rights, can not be transferred and sold, expire automatically when you leave the enterprise.(4) stock appreciation rightsMeans the incentive target of a right granted to the company's share price rose, the incentive object can be obtained through the exercise with the corresponding number of stock appreciation gains, the incentive objects do not have to pay cash for the exercise, exercise, get cash or the equivalent in shares of companies .(5) restricted stockRefers to the prior grant incentive target a certain number of company shares, but the source of the stock, selling, etc. There are some special restrictions, generally only when the incentive object to accomplish a specific goal (eg, profitability), the incentive target in order to sell restricted stock and benefit from it.(6) The deferred paymentRefers to a package of salary income plan designed to motivate object, which part of the equity incentive income, equity incentive income was issued, but according to the fair market value of the company's shares to be converted into the number of shares a fter a certain period of time, the form of company stock or when the stock market value in cash paid to the incentive target.(7) the operator / employee-ownedMeans the incentive target to hold a certain number of the company's stock, the stock is a free gift incentive target, or object of company subsidy incentives to buy, or incentive target is self-financed the purchase. Incentive objects can benefit from appreciation in the stock losses in the devaluation of the stock.(8)Management / employee acquisitionMeans to leverage financing to the company's management o r all employees to purchase shares of the Company, to become shareholders of the Company and other shareholders of risk and profit sharing, to change the company's ownership structure, control over the structure and asset structure, to achieve ownership business.(9) The book value appreciation rightsDivided into specific buy and virtual two. Purchase t ype refers to the incentive target in the beginning of the period per share net asset value of the actual purchase of a certain number of shares, end of period value of the net assets per share at the end of the period and then sold back to the company. Virtual type incentive target in the beginning of the period without expenditure of funds granted by the Company on behalf of the incentive target a certain number of shares calculated at the end of the period, according to the increment of the net assets per share and the number of shares in the name of the proceeds to stimulate the object, and accordingly to incentive target payment in cash.外文文献译文股权激励计划在意大利上市公司扩散1.引言过去的研究揭示了管理者薪酬在盎格鲁撒克逊国家和其他国家相比的差异（例如，贝舒克，弗莱德和瓦尔克，2002；柴芬斯和托马斯，2004；萨特尼，2007）。

《股权激励对公司绩效的影响研究的文献综述4500字》

股权激励对公司绩效的影响研究的国内外文献综述目录股权激励对公司绩效的影响研究的国内外文献综述 (1)1.1 股权激励的动因分析 (1)1.2 股权激励的模式分析 (2)1.3 股权激励对公司绩效的影响评价 (3)1.4 文献评述 (4)参考文献 (5)1.1 股权激励的动因分析国内外相关文献对于股权激励实施动因的观点，大致可以概括为激励型动因和福利型动因两种，激励型动因认为提出股权激励是为了降低代理成本，解决经营者和股东因为利益不一致而产生的冲突，福利型动因认为提出股权激励是作为一种对员工奖励机制的完善补充、激励和吸引员工的。

刘思芸（2020）认为人才密集型上市企业连续多期股权激励的动因包括人力资本升值、解决委托代理问题的需要、强化激励模式的需要、前期股权激励成功实施的经验以及福利型动因[1]。

罗杰明（2020）提出企业之间的竞争归根结底是人才的竞争，若想保持核心竞争力，企业必须重视人才，通过股权激励机制对核心人员的激励可以有效降低人才流失率[2]。

彭茶芳（2019）研究提出，股权激励实施的动因之一是将激励机制与监督机制相结合，协调公司内部利益相关者的关系，规范公司治理结构[3]。

陈艳艳（2017）通过试验研究激励员工、吸引员工和融资约束的三种假设动机，得出实施股权激励被广泛认可的动因是吸引员工和挽留员工，以激励员工和融资约束作为动机受到一定的质疑，此外提出以税收优惠为动因的研究较少[4]。

Zhang Q（2018）认为公司实施股权激励的目标是引进新高管并和激励实施多元化战略，来降低核心员工流失率，改善公司治理[5]。

X.Chang、K.Fu和A.Low （2015）研究中指出，股权激励可以显著提升管理层的风险承担水平，激发他们对髙风险、高收益项目的投资，进而加大研发投入、延长投资期限、提髙创新能力，最终达到提升企业的业绩水平的目的[6]。

Morrell D L（2011）研究认为，股权激励实施具有留住人才和降低委托代理成本的双重目的[7]。

1、下载文档前请自行甄别文档内容的完整性，平台不提供额外的编辑、内容补充、找答案等附加服务。
2、"仅部分预览"的文档,不可在线预览部分如存在完整性等问题,可反馈申请退款(可完整预览的文档不适用该条件!)。
3、如文档侵犯您的权益，请联系客服反馈,我们会尽快为您处理(人工客服工作时间：9:00-18:30)。

文献出处：Scott Duellman. Equity Incentives and Earnings Management[J]. Account. Public Policy ,2014(32):495–517.原文Equity Incentives and Earnings ManagementScott DuellmanaAbstractPrior studies suggest that equity incentives inherently have both an interest alignment effect and an opportunistic financial reporting effect. Using three distinct proxies for earnings management we find evidence consistent with the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increasing as monitoring intensity increases (decreases). Furthermore, using the accrual-based earnings management and meet/beat analyst forecast models we find that the opportunistic financial reporting effect of equity incentives dominates the incentive alignments effect for firms with low monitoring intensity. Using proxies for real earnings management, we find that the incentive alignment effect dominates the opportunistic financial reporting effect for high and moderate monitoring intensity firms. However, for low monitoring intensity firms the opportunistic reporting effect mitigates, but does not completely offset, the benefits of the incentive alignment effect. Overall,these findings are consistent with the level of monitoring affecting the relation between equity incentives and earnings management.1. IntroductionClassical agency theory suggests that equity incentives align managers’interests with shareholders’interests (see for example, Mirlees, 1976, Jensen and Meckling, 1976 and Holmstrom, 1979). However, recent theoretical papers suggest that equity incentives may also motivate managers to boost short term stock prices by manipulating accounting numbers (see for example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk, 2003 and Goldman and Slezak, 2006). Empirical studies examining the effect of equity incentives on earnings management, a proxy for opportunistic reporting, yield mixed results. For example, Gao and Shrieves, 2002,Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Weber, 2006, and Cornett et al. (2008) document a positive relation between equity incentives and accrual-based earnings management; while Hribar and Nichols (2007) find that after controlling for cash flow volatility the relation between equity incentives and earnings management becomes insignificant.1 Furthermore, Cohen et al. (2008) find a negative relation between equity incentives and real earnings management. Thus, whether equity incentives are associated with opportunistic financial reporting is an open empirical question that warrants further study.We view equity incentives as one element of the firm’s governancestructure and argue that equity incentives inherently have both an interest alignment effect and an opportunistic financial reporting effect. We investigate how the relation between equity incentives and earnings management changes with respect to the intensity of firms’ monitoring systems. More specifically, we expect that when monitoring intensity is relatively high, equity incentives will have more of an incentive alignment effect leading to lower earnings management in comparison with low monitoring intensity firms. Conversely, when monitoring intensity is relatively low, equity incentives will have more of an opportunistic financial reporting effect leading to higher earnings management in comparison to high monitoring intensity firms. Thus, we predict that the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increases as monitoring intensity increases (decreases).Using a sample over the time period 2001–2007, we proxy for earnings management using three different measures common in the literature: (i) absolute abnormal accruals, (ii) real earnings management measures, and (iii) the likelihood of meeting/beating an analyst forecast. We measure equity incentives, in a manner consistent with prior studies such as Bergstresser and Philippon (2006) as the percentage of total CEO compensation for the year that would come from a 1% increase in the company’s stock as of the end of the previous fiscal year.To measure the intensity of monitoring mechanisms, we focus on threemechanisms that are most directly involved in monitoring managers’financial reporting decisions (board of directors, external auditors, and institutional investors). We identify six board characteristics, one auditor characteristic, and two institutional investor characteristics that could potentially affect monitoring effectiveness. Using principal component analysis we collapse these nine characteristics into two monitoring intensity measures (principal components) which capture 51.1% of the variance in these characteristics.2 We classify firms as high (low) monitoring intensity firms if both monitoring intensity measures are above (below) median values while firms with only one monitoring factor above the median are classified as moderate monitoring intensity firms. We use this approach as different monitoring attributes may be substitutes or complements to one another and principal component analysis effectively reduces the redundancy in these variables.We regress our measures of earnings management on lagged equity incentives, monitoring intensity classifications (moderate and low), the interaction between them, and a set of control variables. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, we find evidence consistent with the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increasing as monitoring intensity increases (decreases) across all three earnings management measures. Second, in tests using accrual based earnings management and meet/beat analyst forecasts, we find thatfor low monitoring intensity firms, the opportunistic reporting effect dominates the incentive alignment effect of equity incentives; and equity incentives and earnings management are unrelated when monitoring intensity is moderate or high.Third, with respect to real earnings management, we find a negative relation between equity incentives and real earnings management for high and moderate monitoring intensity firms. Furthermore, for low intensity monitoring firms the negative relation is mitigated, but not completely offset, by the incentive alignment effect. In contrast with our abnormal accrual results, these findings suggest that the incentive alignment effect dominates the opportunistic financial reporting effect with respect to real earnings management. A potential explanation for these findings is that both monitors and managers are aware of the higher potential long-term costs of real earnings management and thus tend to avoid cuts to discretionary expenses (research and development) or increase production.Our primary contribution to the literature on the relation between equity incentives and earnings management is that we provide evidence on how this relation varies with the level of oversight by monitoring mechanisms. This is in contrast with most prior studies in this area that either overlook the effects of monitoring (or governance) mechanisms or simply use one or more governance characteristics as control variables(Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Cornett et al., 2008).3 However, a prior study by Weber (2006) also investigates the effects of governance on the relation between CEO wealth sensitivity and earnings management using a random sample of 410 S&P 1500 firms. Weber (2006) finds that CEO wealth sensitivity is positively related to abnormal accruals and that governance does not significantly affect this relation. Weber (2006) defines monitoring intensity by only using the factor that explains the most variance from the principle component analysis. However, this methodology could misclassify firms because monitoring has multiple dimensions and using only one factor ignores the presence of substitutive monitoring mechanisms. Furthermore, in contrast to Weber (2006), using two monitoring intensity factors, we find that monitoring intensity has a significant effect on the relation between equity incentives and earnings management. Additionally, our study uses a broader sample of firms, a longer sample period, and multiple proxies for earnings management.In addition to our primary contribution, we add to the literature in two ways. First, while prior studies on equity incentives and accrual-based earnings management document that the results are dependent on controlling for operating cash flow volatility, we show that for firms with low monitoring, equity incentives are positively related to accrual-based earnings management even after controlling for operating cash flowvolatility. Second, we add to the literature by providing evidence on the effects of monitoring intensity on the relation between equity incentives and real earnings management. T o our knowledge, the only other study that investigates the relation between equity incentives and real earnings management is Cohen et al. (2008).4However, Cohen et al. (2008) do not consider the mitigating effects of monitoring intensity on this relation.An important limitation of our study (and other work in this area more generally) is that equity incentives and other governance mechanisms are likely to be chosen endogenously with the firm’s other corporate policies, structures, and features. Thus, while we attempt to mitigate the effects of endogeneity, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that our results could be affected by endogeneity bias.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a discussion of prior research and our hypothesis development. Section 3 presents our research design choices and their rationale. The evidence is presented in Section 4 and the conclusion in Section 5.2. Prior research and hypothesis development2.1. Prior researchEquity incentives are an important part of firms’governance structures that are used to align managers’interests with shareholder interests (Mirlees, 1976, Jensen and Meckling, 1976 and Holmstrom, 1979). However, recent studies suggest that they also motivate managers to focuson boosting stock price in the short term (see for example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk, 2003 and Goldman and Slezak, 2006).Prior studies document mixed evidence on the effect of equity incentives on earnings management. On the one hand, Gao and Shrieves, 2002, Cheng and Warfield, 2005, Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006 and Weber, 2006, and Cornett et al. (2008) find that equity incentives are positively related to the absolute value of abnormal accruals. On the other hand, Hribar and Nichols (2007) demonstrate that findings of earnings management in studies that are based on absolute abnormal accruals no longer hold once controls for cash flow volatility are added. Furthermore, in contrast with studies documenting opportunistic effects of equity incentives, Cohen et al. (2008) find a negative relation between real earnings management methods and stock ownership, CEO bonuses, and unexercisable options consistent with incentive alignment effects dominating opportunistic effects. Armstrong et al. (2010a, 226) summarize the findings on the relation between equity incentives and accounting irregularities of all types (including accrual based earnings management) by stating that “no conclusive results have emerged from the literature.”Thus, whether equity incentives result in earnings management remains an open question.2.2. Equity incentives and other governance mechanismsWe view equity incentives as one element of a firm’s overallgovernance structure. Furthermore, we note that equity incentives have both an incentive alignment effect as well as an opportunistic financial reporting effect. The incentive alignment effect follows from agency theory which suggests that managerial stock ownership align their interests with shareholders (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). The opportunistic financial reporting effect arises because managers with high equity incentives are motivated to overstate accounting performance and boost stock prices in the short-run. For example, Bar-Gill and Bebchuk (2003) show that when managers can sell shares in the short-run, they will be motivated to misreport performance and misreporting will be an increasing function of the fraction of management-owned shares that could be sold (also see Goldman and Slezak, 2006 and Ronen et al., 2006).If firms choose their governance structures to maximize value, and optimally use equity incentives in conjunction with other governance mechanisms, there will be either a negative relation or no relation between equity incentives and earnings management. Intuitively, any opportunistic effects of equity incentives would be exactly offset by other governance or monitoring mechanisms. However, adjusting governance structures is costly so it is unclear whether most firms end up with optimal equity incentives and monitoring mechanisms in a dynamic environment. Deviations from optimal monitoring raises the possibility that under some conditions the opportunistic effects of equity incentives may dominate ormitigate the incentive alignment effects. Consistent with this view, Core et al. (2003) state that firms choose the optimal level of executive compensation during contracting periods but transaction costs prevent firms from continuously writing new contracts creating deviations from the optimal contract.Thus, we explore whether the relation between equity incentives and earnings management varies with the monitoring intensity of the firm. In the presence of high monitoring intensity, equity incentives will have more of an incentive alignment effect, leading to lower earnings management in comparison to low monitoring intensity firms. Conversely, in the presence of low monitoring intensity, equity incentives will have more of an opportunistic financial reporting effect leading to higher earnings management in comparison to high monitoring intensity firms. These predictions can be stated as the following alternative hypotheses: H1a.The incentive alignment effect of equity incentives increases as monitoring intensity increases.H1b.The opportunistic financial reporting effect of equity incentives increases as monitoring intensity decreases.Our empirical tests use both accrual-based and real earnings management proxies. We note that real earnings management is potentially more costly for firms in terms of adverse impacts on future profitability. For example, cutting research and development or advertisingto boost earnings in the short-term can lead to decline in future profits because of loss of market share or reduction in innovation. Given these differential costs of earnings management, the effect of equity incentives on the different types of earnings management could differ.译文股权激励与盈余管理斯科特·迪尤尔1.引言经典代理理论认为，股权激励使经理人与股东的利益一致（例如，迈瑞, 1976; 延森和梅克林, 1976;霍姆斯特姆, 1979）。