近幾年來，台灣法定員工福利支出明顯增加，而這是否會透過勞動成本上升造成企業投資意願下降，已成為重要政策議題。爰此，本文特以2002至2012年國內上市櫃公司財報資料，探討國內法定員工福利支出對企業投資意願之影響。為避免個別企業不可觀測差異（unmeasurable heterogeneity）對估計結果造成偏誤，本文採長期追蹤型資料（panel data）固定效果模型進行估計。此外，本文也利用工具變數法處理法定員工福利支出與薪資之內生關連性問題。本文實證結果發現提高法定員工福利支出會使企業實際投資減少。為確保本文實證結果之穩定性，本文參考Barslund et al.（2007）所提方法進行穩定性檢測，發現不論其他解釋變數之間如何組合，法定員工福利支出對企業投資的估計係數皆為顯著負值。
In recent years, mandated benefits in Taiwan have increased significantly due to several policy reforms pertaining to social insurance and labor welfare. This has caused an increase in total labor costs, which may in turn cause a decrease in capital investments-a topic that has become an important policy issue. This research therefore uses data from Taiwanese stock market companies over the period from 2002 to 2012 in order to analyze the effect of mandated benefits on capital investments. To control for a bias possibly caused by unmeasurable heterogeneity, we employ a panel data fixed effect model. Moreover, we control for the endogeneity between mandated benefits and wages as well as for the traditional determinants of capital investments based on accelerator model, cash flow model, neoclassical model and Tobin's Q. According to our empirical research results, an increase in the mandated benefit ratio causes a reduction in company capital investments. We check the robustness of this result by employing the methodology proposed in Barslund et al. (2007) and find that the effect of mandated benefits on capital investments is negative and significant for all possible combinations of independent variables in all of our models.
