Does Audit Committees’ Equity-based Compensation Affect Firms’ Cost of Equity Capital and Credit Rating?

本研究以權益基礎報酬占總報酬的比率來捕捉薪酬結構，並據以探討給予審計委員會的薪酬結構對於公司權益資金成本及信用評等之影響。利用 2006 至 2010 年間納入美國 S&P1500指數之公司 (排除金融服務與保險業) 為樣本，本研究發現，若權益基礎報酬佔審計委員會薪酬比率越高，其公司之權益資金成本越低，但該公司之信用評等卻越差。顯示權益基礎報酬之比重在二種財報使用者眼中具有不同涵義。投資人認為給予審計委員會較高之權益基礎報酬比重，可使監督更有效，投資人承擔之資訊風險降低，進而願意降低其要求報酬；信用評等機構則認為，給予較高的權益基礎報酬比重將傷害審計委員會獨立性，影響公司治理結構，並降低財務報導之品質，因而給予此類公司較差之信用評等。This study examines how investors and credit rating agents react to audit committees’ equity-based compensation. Based on a sample of S&P 1500 firms during 2006-2010, the empirical results show that firms who pay audit committees higher portion of equity-based compensation have lower cost of equity capital and lower credit rating. These results suggest different information users perceive and react to equity-based compensation in different ways. Particularly, investors appear to perceive that higher portion of equity-based compensation can align audit committee members’ interest with the shareholders’, leading to more effective monitoring and smaller information risk. Therefore, investors react by reducing their cost of equity capital. In contrast, credit rating agents appear to perceive that higher portion of equity-based compensation may harm audit committees’ independence, resulting in decreased quality of financial reporting. Therefore, credit rating agents react by downgrading firms’ credit ratings