本研究之主要目的為檢測Titman (1984)與Berk, Stanton, and Zechner (2010)的理論，舉債較高的公司是否會支付較高的薪酬給經理人與一般員工。且利用Z-score來針對財務危機以及財務安全公司分別作探討，檢測財務有危機的公司是否會將槓桿視為對員工的談判工具。本文以美國所有上市櫃公司為樣本，經理人薪酬相關模型樣本期間為2006-2013年，一般員工薪酬相關模型樣本期間為2001-2012年。本研究發現，舉債較高的公司相對會支付較高的薪酬給經理人與員工以補償他們的人力資本成本。此外，槓桿比率與財務危機公司的交乘項為負相關，證明有財務危機的公司利用舉債做為談判工具來部分抵銷員工薪資的效果可能存在。根據本研究可以讓公司在做資本結構決策及建立薪酬結構時，了解人力資本風險的考量將是不可或缺的。

In this paper, we test the predictions of Titman (1984) and Berk, Stanton, and Zechner (2010), which indicate that firms with higher leverage will pay CEO and employee more. In addition, we use Altman Z-score to separate financially safe and financially distressed firms and examine whether firms utilize leverage as a bargaining tool especially in financially distressed firms. We use the publicly traded firms in America as our sample. The sample period of model of CEO compensation is from 2006 to 2013, and the sample period of model of employee pay is from 2001 to 2012. The empirical results show that firms with higher leverage indeed pay their CEO and employee more significantly to compensate their human capital risk. Furthermore, we observe that the impact of interaction between leverage and distressed firms on employee pay is significantly negative, indicating that firms with financially distress would use the leverage as a bargaining tool to offset the compensating effect comparing to safe firms. This study suggests that bringing human capital risk into consideration when making capital and compensation structure decisions is necessary.

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