契约理论是现代企业理论的重要组成部分,它将企业看作是一系列契约的组合,由于信息不对称和契约不完全导致在委托代理关系中的代理冲突。为了缓解或解决代理问题,需要在委托人与代理人之间建立一套机制,以使得代理人的行为符合委托人的利益目标。随着Jensen和Meckling在1976年提出了公司代理理论,公司代理成本就成为公司治理研究的一个热点问题。公司代理成本是由于管理层与股东在委托代理关系的目标不一致而产生的。在最近的我国上市公司代理成本的相关研究中,大部分普遍忽略了高管任期对于我国上市公司代理成本的影响。高管任期能够显著影响到管理层对我国上市公司的管理行为,公司代理成本也不可避免的要受到影响。因此,研究高管任期与我国上市公司代理成本的关系对于公司代理成本的相关研究具有重要意义。 Contract theory is an important part of the modern enterprise theory. It treats the enterprise as a combination of a series of contracts. As the information asymmetry and the contract incompletely lead to the agency conflict in the principal-agent relationship. In order to alleviate or solve the agency problem, it is necessary to establish a mechanism between the principal and the agent to make the agent’s behavior consistent with the interests of the principal. As Jensen and Meckling proposed corporate agency theory in 1976, corporate agency costs have become a hot issue in corporate governance research. Corporate agency costs are due to inconsistencies between management and shareholders in the principal-agent relationship. In recent studies on agency costs of listed companies in China, most of them generally ignore the influence of senior management on the agency costs of listed companies in China. Top management tenure can significantly affect the management of listed companies in China’s management behavior, corporate agency costs will inevitably be affected. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the relationship between executive tenure and agency costs of listed companies in our country.