员工持股计划对股价崩盘风险的影响及作用机制研究

员工持股计划发挥了激励作用，还是成为大股东与高管获取私人利益的工具？本课题结合我国经济制度背景，系统考察员工持股计划对股价崩盘风险的影响及作用机制。首先，我们提出两个竞争性假说：利益相关者理论认为，员工持股计划提高劳动生产率并改善公司治理，能够减少未来股价崩盘风险；代理理论则指出，机会主义高管利用员工持股计划操纵盈余、隐藏负面消息以牟取私人利益，加剧了未来股价崩盘风险。其次，我们利用手工搜集的上市公司员工持股计划行权明细数据，考察了员工持股计划对股价崩盘风险的暂时性影响和后续影响，寻找支持利益相关者理论或代理理论的经验证据。再次，我们从企业业绩、员工诉讼与公司治理（盈余管理、信息操纵与员工举报）等角度探讨员工持股计划降低（增加）未来股价崩盘风险的作用机制，并从搭便车效应与内外部公司治理等角度考察员工持股计划的异质性效果。最后，本课题对企业管理层、资本市场投资者与监管者具有重要参考价值。

Will employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) motivate employees or become a tool for controlling shareholders and executives to extract private benefits? Based on the background of China's economic system, we systematically examine the impact and mechanism of ESOPs on stock price crash risk. First, we propose two competing hypotheses. The stakeholder theory suggests that ESOPs improve labor productivity and corporate governance, thereby reducing the risk of future stock price crashes. However, the agency theory states that opportunistic executives use ESOPs to manipulate earnings, hide negative news, and seek private benefits, which increases the risk of future stock price crashes. Second, based on the manually collected exercise dates of listed companies’ ESOPs, we examine the temporary and subsequent impact of ESOPs on stock price crash risk and find empirical evidence supporting stakeholder theory or agency theory. Third, we explore the mechanism of ESOPs to reduce (increase) stock price crash risk from the perspective of corporate performance, employee litigation, and corporate governance (earnings management, information manipulation, and employee whistleblowing). We further examine the heterogeneous effects of ESOPs from the perspective of free-riding effects and internal and external corporate governance. Finally, our study provides important implications for management, investors, and regulators.