大股东掏空是现有公司治理文献的核心领域,但由于对大股东动机的刻画存在较大缺陷限制了该领域研究的进展及其对现实世界的解释力.文章从我国上市公司大股东股权质押、冻结的特殊视角,探讨大股东在财务约束下的占款行为及其经济后果.实证研究表明:当大股东面临严重财务约束(股权被质押、冻结)时,更容易对上市公司进行占款,并且此时的占款行为还对上市公司的业绩产生负面影响.进一步发现,尽管外部监管和内部制衡力量对这种占款行为有明显制约作用,但即使在较强的外部监管力度或内部制衡力量下,财务约束下的大股东占款行为依然存在.以上结果表明,用股权质押衡量大股东的财务约束及其掏空倾向,对大股东的行为具有较强的解释力.为现有大股东和公司治理研究文献提供了新的分析视角和实证变量,同时也为监管部门规范大股东行为以及外部投资者进行投资决策提供了重要的参考.
This paper studies how the controlling shareholders' financial constraints influence their tunneling behavior and related economic consequences from the perspective of controlling shareholders' stock pledge and freezing.We have documented strong evidence suggesting that:When the controlling shareholders are facing serious financial constraints (when the equity is pledged or frozen),they tend to tunnel more money from listed companies,which has negative effects on both the accounting performances and market values of listed companies.At the same time,although the tunneling behavior of large shareholders under financial constraints is greatly mitigated by the external supervision and internal balance power,the above results are still statistically significant even when external supervision and internal balance power are stronger.The above results show that,using stock pledge as a proxy for financial constraint and tunneling incentive of controlling shareholders is more powerful to explain the behavior of controlling shareholders.This study provides not only an analytical perspective and empirical variables to the existing controlling shareholders and corporate governance literature,but also important references for the regulators to monitor the behavior of controlling shareholders and for outside investors to make investment decisions.