Incentive Contracting and Value Relevance of Earnings and Cash Flows
用大样本实证检验了盈余和现金流量的价值相关性如何影响其在高管薪酬契约中的使用权重，发现两者存在显著关联，且1993-2003年间盈余的价值相关性和薪酬权重下降，而现金流量的则上升。
ABSTRACT Accounting performance measures such as earnings and cash flows are useful for both valuation and performance evaluation purposes. However, little evidence exists on whether there is any association between these two roles. In this study, we provide large sample empirical evidence that the value relevance of earnings explains a significant amount of the cross‐sectional variation in the pay‐sensitivity of earnings and the incremental value relevance of cash flows explains variation in the marginal pay‐sensitivity of cash flows. We document that while both value relevance and compensation weight on earnings decline from the subperiod of 1993 to 1997 to the subperiod of 1998 to 2003, both value relevance and compensation weight on cash flows increase from the earlier subperiod to the later subperiod. Overall, our results provide additional evidence that value relevance of a performance measure plays a significant role in its use for performance evaluation.