节点文献
中国家族上市公司最终所有权结构研究
Research on Ultimate Ownership Structure of Family-controlled Public Firms in China
【作者】 叶长兵;
【导师】 陈凌;
【作者基本信息】 浙江大学 , 政治经济学, 2010, 博士
【摘要】 随着民营经济的不断发展,家族上市公司已经成为中国资本市场的重要组成部分。作为全球最大的转轨经济体和新兴市场,中国的家族上市公司也大多被置入金字塔控股(PH)结构之中,控制性家族掏空上市公司的行为不断浮出水面,被认为是家族上市公司的核心代理问题的体现,成为制约资本市场发展的主要因素之一。然而与家族PH结构作为世界范围内最常见的公司控制手段这一事实形成对比的是,理论界对其知之甚少,而以新兴市场和发展中国家为对象的研究更为欠缺。相关国际性研究的实证样本都不包括中国大陆,其原因除了较难获取相关数据以外,就是中国家族上市公司的最终所有权结构及其赖以形成的制度环境具有特殊性。而国内相关研究大多沿袭国际文献中的理论逻辑和分析框架,未能深入考察中国家族上市公司最终所有权结构在特征、成因以及影响上的特殊性,得出的结论难免失之偏颇。本文基于中国转轨经济和新兴市场双重制度背景和“家文化”传统,认为与只能间接发挥作用并且短期内难以改变的投资者权利保护相比,公司所有权结构相关的法律规制和治理环境对家族上市公司最终所有权结构具有更为重要和可观测的影响。因此,本文在回顾相关研究的基础上,沿用并改进La Porta等(1999)开创的跨国比较范式和计算最终控制权、现金流权的方法,利用相关法律规制的歧视性和多变性、区域间治理环境的不均衡性以及资本市场分割造成治理约束的不对称性,以2004~2007年在沪深两市公开交易的1704家家族上市公司为样本,在案例分析的基础上运用统计分析、数理分析以及计量分析等多种分析方法对中国家族上市公司金字塔式最终所有权结构的特征、成因和影响进行了系统性的研究,主要结论如下:(1)中国家族上市公司具有代表性的最终所有权结构是一种广义家族PH结构,具有不同于国外文献中狭义PH结构的特征。中国广义家族PH结构中间层持股公司为非上市公司,控制性家族成员和泛家族成员对其持股具有普遍性、模糊性和隐蔽性,使得最终控制权与现金流权分离程度较低但容易被实证研究高估。(2)中国家族PH结构的形成主要是由相关法律规制和治理环境决定的,投资者权利保护不足并不能解释家族PH结构在中国的普遍存在。具体来看,在控制企业和家族涉入特征的前提下,歧视性的上市制度、持股制度和税收制度都显著增加了控制层级,对两权分离度和所有权集中度也具有不同的影响;较高的区域市场化程度、B股市场的双重治理约束都抑制了家族PH结构的控制层级和所有权集中度,却也增加了其两权分离度。(3)较多的控制层级而不是较高的两权分离度加剧了控制性家族的掏空行为。在多层级的PH结构中,母子公司之间类似于“父子债”的资源转移行为具有非正式制度基础,因而得以长期普遍地存在且难于监管。中间层持股公司外部股东的存在是中国PH结构中两权分离的唯一来源,这些外部股东并不是真正的“外人”或“中小股东”,使得两权分离并不能增加控制性家族掏空行为的净收益,相关实证研究在回归模型中只考察两权分离度而未纳入控制层级就可能得到两权分离度与掏空的伪相关关系。本研究提出了广义家族PH结构的概念,首次论证了这种中国家族上市公司最具代表性的最终所有权结构的特征,在此基础上解释了其形成原因,并通过数理模型证明了其对家族上市公司治理行为和绩效的影响,同时也得到了大样本实证检验的支持。本研究纠正了相关研究在理论分析和方法运用上的一些误区,为相关国际文献贡献了不一样的中国样本并构成了对法与金融分析跨国比较范式的补充。研究结论丰富了各界对家族PH结构的现有认识,同时也可供政策制定者和监管当局参考。
【Abstract】 With the development of China’s private economy, family-controlled public firms(Abbreviated as "FPFs" hereafter) have become an important part of China’s capital market. As the world’s largest transition economies and emerging markets, China’s FPFs are mostly placed into family-controlled pyramidal holding structure(Abbreviated as "FPHS" hereafter). "Tunneling" emerges continuously and has been considered to be the central agency problem and one of the main constraints of China’s capital markets. However, in contrast to the ubiquity of FPHS as a corporation control mechanism, little is known about it theoretically and there is even fewer research focused in emerging markets and developing countries. The methodology of tracing the chain of ownership created by La Porta et al (1999) has been applied to investigate corporate ownership all over the world. But China is not covered by international empirical research samples. The reason is that the ultimate ownership structure of China’s FPFs and corresponding institutional environment are too unique to be incorporated into the "Law and Finance" cross-country comparison paradigm. Therefore, the conclusions will be inevitably biased for most domestic researches following the logic and analytical framework of international literature and with inadequate consideration to the features, causes and impact of the ultimate ownership structure of China’s FPFs.Based on China’s dual institutional environment of emerging market accompanied with transition economy and family-oriented culture as well, we believe that compared to investor protection, the legal regulation and governance environment related to corporate ownership have more important and observable effects on the ultimate ownership structure of China’s FPFs. Based on existing studies, this research follows and improves both the cross-country comparison paradigm and methodology in computing ultimate cash-flow right and voting right created by La Porta et al (1999) and applies them to China. Using the sample of 1704 family-controlled public firms in 2004 to 2007 in China A share market, this research investigates the feature, causes and impact of FPHS in Chinain the light of discriminatory legal regulation, unbalanced regional governance environment and different regulation resulted from market split as well. Case studies, theoretical analysis, statistical analysis, mathematical analysis along with quantitative analysis are applied and the main findings are the following.(1) The typical ultimate ownership structure of China’s FPFs is a broad-sensed FPHS which is different from the narrow-sensed one defined by international literatures. The ultimate controller together with his family or extensive-family members hold the great majority interest of the intermediate holding companies in China’s broad-sense FPHS. Also their shareholdings are ambiguous and opaque, resulted in lower separation between ultimate ownership and control that is often over-estimated in empirical research. (2) The formation of China’s FPHS is not mainly resulted from inadequate investor protection but from relevant legal system and governance environment. Specifically, with business characteristics and family involvement being controlled, discriminatory legal system, including listing system, share-holding system and tax system pose important impact on the layers and separation between ultimate control and ownership. Higher degree of regional marketization and dual restraints on B-share firms result in fewer pyramid layers, lower ownership concentration and higher separation between ultimate ownership and control as well. (3) More pyramid layers rather than higher separation between ownership and control can aggravate "tunneling". In a multi-layer FPHS, the transfer of resources among holdings and Subsidiaries is similar to the "father-son bonds" admitted by informal system, allowing for its persistence, universality and non-supervisory. The presence of outside shareholders in intermediate holding companies is the only source of separation between control and ownership. But those outside shareholders are not essentially "outsiders" or "small shareholders", which indicate that the controlling family can’t benefit from tunneling at the expense of the interests of intermediate shareholders. Most domestic empirical research excluded pyramid layers from regression model and thus got a wrong correlation between ownership vs. control deviations and tunneling. This research proposes the concept of broad-sense FPHS and for the first time demonstrates the features of that kind of structure that is also the most typical ultimate ownership structure of China’s FPFs. Relying on the conceptual framework of China’s broad-sense FPHS, the research gives reasonable explanation to the causes and impact on tunneling, firm performance of China’s FPHS, which has also been supported by large-sample empirical test. This study can correct some theoretical and methodological errors for related research and contribute to relevant international literature a special China’s sample. The framework can work as complementary to cross-country comparison paradigm used by law and finance literature. Also the conclusion can enrich the existing knowledge of FPHS and provide reference for policy makers and regulatory authorities as well.
【Key words】 Family-controlled Public Firms; Ultimate Ownership Structure; Pyramidal Holding Structure; Tunneling;