企業之營運當中，其營運資金有部份需仰賴企業外部之投資者，大多數公司會以發債的方式進行籌措。債權人在投入資金前，其所能信賴的即企業對外之財務報表。但債權人對於管理階層所編製的財務報表可靠性會產生不信任感，此時便需要會計師的查核意見；然而在安隆案後，社會大眾對於會計師的獨立性信賴崩盤，Arthur Andersen為安隆公司提供簽證服務長達二十七年，此舉引發人們對於會計師任期長短所造成的獨立性疑慮；此外，安隆案的揭弊者Sherron Watkins，於2002年登上了時代雜誌的女性風雲人物，在一般認知中，女性的行事風格較男性保守也較有道德感，且女性較可能因為偏好道德上的判斷而勇於挑戰現實中的壓力。 / When it comes to managing an enterprise, most of the companies would rely on outside investors to supply them with operation funds. Companies would raise funds by issuing bonds. In order to win the trust from these investors, management team has to provide them with impressive financial statements. Financial statements represent the financial affairs and the state of management of enterprises in a period or the end of the year. Due to the distrust of the financial statement reliability may occurred by creditors, opinions from accountants become necessary. However, the scandal of Enron Corporation had inflicted the trust from the public. People started to concern about the independency of accountant because the engagement service that Arthur Anderson had provided for Enron was last for 27 years. Generally, people consider women are more conservative and full of moral sense than men. Women may prefer challenging the pressure of reality due to the judgement with moral sense. Moreover, Time Magazine named Sherron Watkins, the whistleblower of the Enron scandal, “Person of the Year” for 2002. Therefore, whether the gender difference may affect the final opinions that accountants provide, becomes another key point in my research. This study aims to examine the effect of debt cost with elements as follow: auditor’s gender and tenure. With a sample of ordinary corporate bonds published by listed and over-the-counter companies during 2000-2014. The results show that companies audited by female accountants has less debt cost and auditor’s tenure has a positive association with debt cost.

本研究利用2000年至2004年的資料，分析獨立董事與監察人的設置 (以下簡稱為獨立董監) 與公司債務資金成本的關聯性。在以利息費用除以付息負債做為代理變數的前提之下，本研究的實證結果顯示，無論以當期利率水準、次期利率水準或者利率水準的變化做為被解釋變數，均顯示聘任獨立董監的企業會享有較低的債務資金成本。此外，進一步的分析也發現，無論以簡單的單變量模型、普通最小平方法或者利用縱橫面資料 (panel data) 模型，都得一致性地得到獨立董監得以有助於減緩公司與債權人間代理成本的實證結果。就控制變數而言，與預期相同，較完備的公司治理、較高的企業規模以及較佳的營運績效均與債務資金成本具有負向的關聯性。 / Corporate governance has become an imperative issue recently, especially the focus on the independent director system. Securities and Futures Commission has requested that those applying to be listed companies should set up the independent director systems for the purpose of building better corporate governance systems. In the framework of corporate governance formulated by the World Bank, as an essential capital provider or financial statement user, creditor plays an indispensable role. But few literatures has conducted to evaluate the relationship between the cost of debt financing and corporate governance, much less with the independent directors. Therefore, this study based on a sample of listed companies data in Taiwan Economic Journal over the period of 2000 to 2004 is to explore the relationship between independent directors and cost of debt and expected to provide the financial institutions determining the borrowing rate with some empirical results. The results indicate the cost of debt, whether based on the level analysis or change analysis of ordinary least square model or panel data analysis, is inversely related to the independent directors with significance at 1% level, suggesting that the enterprise with independent directors having the lower cost of debt in favor of the hypothesis. The analysis also indicates the relationship of the control variables of board characteristics, such as the ratio of the stock held by the board and supervisors is inversely with cost of debt、the higher ratio of the pledged shares held by the board and supervisors with the higher cost of debt and the enterprise with the combined titles of the chairman and CEO has higher cost of debt, follow our expectation again.

本論文之研究目的係驗證公允價值資訊是否會影響聯合貸款的借款條件。實證結果顯示公司採用更多公允價值，尤其是第1等級輸入值，可在聯合貸款市場中可取得較有利的聯合貸款條件，例如可取得更低的利率及更高額的貸款金額。然而實證結果也顯示，若公司採用更多公允價值，尤其是第1等級輸入值，會有更高的機會被債權人要求提供債務擔保。由此可知，公司採用更多公允價值可有助於取得更有利的聯合貸款借款條件，同時第1等級輸入值可獲得更顯著的結果。