本文主要探討台灣上市公司高階經理人薪酬變動的決定因素，不同於現有的國內多數文獻以薪酬水準為研究，本文建立經理人薪酬之縱橫斷面資料(panel data)，以探討薪酬變化的決定因素，這樣的分析方法將能夠更正確地檢驗薪酬和績效的關聯性與敏感度；此外，本文強調外部經理人勞動市場所決定的酬勞行情對經理人薪酬調整的影響。 本文的實證結果除了呼應現有文獻中有關經理人薪酬與公司績效的關聯性之外，更重要的是驗證了外部經理人勞動市場在決定我國高階經理人薪酬時所扮演的重要角色。我們發現，公司在調整總經理酬勞時，會因應經理人薪酬低於(或高於)市場酬勞行情來進行必要的增加(或減少)；且薪酬向上調升的幅度相較於薪酬向下調降的幅度約多了1.5倍，顯示薪酬的調整具有不對稱現象，工資向下調整的僵固性確實存在於經理人薪酬調整的過程中。此外，薪酬調整的情形與前一期薪酬偏離市場行情的程度具有明顯的非線性關係，亦即隨著偏離市場行情程度的增加，薪酬調整的幅度也有顯著的加大。 The purpose of this study is to understand the determinants of the changes of top executive compensation for Taiwan''s listed companies. Different from prior studies using Taiwan''s data, which are used to deal with the levels of executive pay, we focus on the changes of executive pay by constructing an unbalanced panel of compensation data. It allows us to correctly figure out the sensitivity of executive pay to firm performance. Moreover, we emphasize the influence of the “market rate” determined by the external managerial labor market on the setting of the executive pay. We find that the managerial labor market play a key role to determine the executive compensation besides the influence of company performance. More precisely, the executive compensation has to be increased (reduced) when it is underpaid (overpaid) than that in market rate. The magnitude of adjusting upward is about 1.5 times that of adjusting downward. This asymmetric variation indicates that there exists downward wage rigidity in the adjustment process. Finally, we also find that there is a non-linear relationship between the adjustment of executive compensation and the deviation from labor market in the last period. That is, the level of the adjustment of executive compensation significantly rises as deviation increases.
