توضیحات جایگزین برای ارتباط بین ارزش بازار و هزینه های جبران خسارت مبتنی سهام

The relation between stock-based compensation and market values has been tested previously in the literature, but the empirical findings are inconsistent: both negative and positive relations have been documented. The objective of this study is to provide an explanation for why both negative and positive relations between stock-based compensation expenditure and market values can be consistent with rational markets.

This study investigates the relation between stock-based compensation and market values. This relation has been tested in the literature, but the empirical findings are inconsistent, as both negative and positive associations have been found—negative in Aboody (1996) and Aboody et al. (2004b), positive in Rees and Stott, 2001 and Bell et al., 2002 and Brown and Yew (2002). The first objective of this study is to provide an explanation for why both the negative and positive relations between stock-based compensation and market values can be consistent with rational markets. We predict that a positive relation is expected when stock-based compensation is used to provide incentives for enhanced future performance. Alternatively, we predict a negative relation when stock-based compensation is granted primarily as a reward for prior years’ good performance. The second objective is to provide empirical evidence on this explanation for alternative relations between market values and stock-based compensation.

This study has expanded on current knowledge by providing some evidence on how the relation between stock-based compensation expenditure (in the form of stock options) and market values differs, according to the primary reasons for granting the options. There are two main motivations for this paper. First, the extant literature that tests the association between the value of stock-based compensation and market values has produced inconsistent results (Aboody, 1996, Rees and Stott, 2001, Bell et al., 2002, Brown and Yew, 2002 and Aboody et al., 2004b). These mixed results suggest that there may be an explanation for why both the negative and positive relations between stock-based compensation expenditure and market values can be consistent with rational markets. The second motivation is that Australia is a unique setting in which to study this association because of substantial heterogeneity in the characteristics of options granted by Australian firms (Coulton and Taylor, 2002 and Matolcsy and Wright, 2007), which is very different to the homogeneity witnessed in the United States (Murphy, 1999).