A relação entre o conservadorismo contábil e a complexidade dos contratos de remuneração dos executivos: evidências empíricas do mercado de capitais do Brasil.

Abstract

There are allegations that executive compensation contracts are increasingly complex elements, presented are about the subject, about what drives this complexity, and its relationship with research that leads to contractual efficiency, such as accounting conservative. Measures were taken for the complexity of compensation contracts already used in the literature, which were necessary to pulverize or to calculate the measures used and more than one proxy for accounting conservatism to verify the relationship between the complexity of compensation packages of conservatives and conditional accounting conservatism. For that, Driscoll-Kray and quantile regressions were used in additional tests with alternative models and proxies. The main model outlines 1210 observations from 121 companies. Evidence of the relationship between complexity and conditional conservatism was found, the complexity of remuneration contracts has a positive relationship with the level of conditional conservatism. Complementarily, the results observed according to the Driscoll-Kray estimator, used in other models with alternative proxies of accounting conservatism or compensation complexity, confirmed the results. Quantile regression show that the relationships can do gradual changes at the quantile level. Furthermore, there is evidence on a statistically significant level of conservatism, however the coefficients showed considerably lower values compared to international research that show a higher level of accounting conservatism. Additionally, the relationship between the blocks of compensation components and accounting conservatism was analyzed. The blocks were based on the portion of cash, equity and bonus that are included in contractual clauses to deal with conflicts between agent and principal. Not consistent with the efficiency literature, but possibly in line with managerial power, cash-based compensation did not require a higher level of accounting conservatism, some evidence suggests that the bonus portion is in line with the bonus maximization hypothesis and indicate that equity compensation reduces the level of conservatism. Previous studies have found that the complexity may vary according to certain characteristics of the companies and sector, however the complexity of remuneration may be associated with the difficulty of monitoring agents due to information overload, rent extraction and lower future performance of the company, since that contracts can be approached by contractual efficiency or managerial opportunism. Accounting conservatism is an instrument that could resolve agency problems and improve contractual efficiency. The unintended consequences of complexity also confirm concerns raised by investors, researchers, analysts, and the specialized media. In addition, an opportunity for future research is analyze accounting conservatism in different quantiles, as well as the different levels of relationship between accounting conservatism and the complexity of compensation contracts. Empirical findings can be useful to boards in designing executive compensation contracts that are more efficient, harmonious, balanced, and less vulnerable to agency problems, as well as to investors and other users of accounting.