本文基于行为经济学视角的理论阐释,利用中国A股2004-2011年数据实证检验了高管薪酬契约的参照点效应及其治理后果。研究结果表明:(1)我国上市公司高管薪酬契约呈现明显的参照点效应,即上市公司高管薪酬显著受到同行业、本地区高管薪酬均值等外部参照基准的影响;(2)薪酬契约参照点效应引发的主观心理感知对企业高管的在职消费和主动离职行为等都有重要影响,具体来讲,当高管薪酬水平低于同行业、本地区高管薪酬均值时,企业高管将产生自我利益被侵蚀的消极心理感知,进而导致他们通过在职消费途径寻求替代性激励补偿的动机显著增强;同时,企业高管发生主动离职行为的概率也明显增强。
Based on the theoretical framework of behavioral economics, this article uses data from Chinese listed companies in China 'A stock market' between year 2004 to 2011 to investigate empirically the reference point effect of top manager's compensation contract and discusses its governance impact on firm's perks level and top manager's voluntary turnover behavior. The empirical results show that: (1) Top manager's compensation contract in Chinese listed companies presents significant reference point effect, which implies that the salary level of top managers is significantly related to the average level of counterparts in the same industry and the same region. (2) According to the reference point contract theory in behavioral economics field, top managers' negative psychological perception which is mainly motivated by the reference point effect of their compensation contract will exert great influence on'.their intention to implement expensive perks or voluntary turnover behavior. Concretely speaking, when top managers realize that their compensation level is much more lower than the average compensation level of their counterparts whose companies are in the same industry or located in the same region with them, top managers will generate strong negative psycholog- ical reaction about their deserve interest being expropriated. As a result, these top managers have much more motivation to exercise perquisite consumption so as to obtain an implicitly alternative incentive to make up their loss in explicit compensation contract. What is more, these top managers also show greater probability to turnover voluntarily, which is another kind of retaliatory behavior to their unfair compensation contracts. All these actions can be seen as top managers' negatively reciprocal response to their un- fair compensation contract which leads to their interest erosion. Overall, this research expands our theoretical understanding about top manager's compensation contract, and it also provides some supportive