融资约束下CEO过度自信是否会导致企业R & D投资扭曲

从融资约束角度出发,以我国2003-2014年沪深上市制造业和信息技术业企业为样本,通过对R&D动态投资模型和投资扭曲模型进行面板分析发现：与固定资产投资相比,CEO过度自信对企业R&D融资约束影响更明显,从而导致其对R&D投资扭曲的影响也更显著。通过企业异质性检验发现,对于易受融资约束的中小企业,CEO过度自信会造成其投资不足,而对于不易受融资约束的企业,CEO过度自信并不会造成其过度投资。因此,CEO过度自信对企业创新投入的促进作用只在企业不受融资约束时才成立。     

The effect of managerial ability on dividend policy: how do talented managers view dividend payouts?

We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani’s (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, that is, variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24 000 observations across over 20 years (1989–2011), our results show that firms with more talented executives are more likely to pay dividends and, among firms that pay dividends, pay significantly larger dividends. A rise in managerial ability by one SD raises the propensity to pay dividends by 27% and, for firms that pay dividends, increases dividend payouts by 29%. Our results are consistent with the notion that talented managers, confident in their ability to keep the firm profitable, are more willing to pay larger dividends because they are less concerned about having to reduce dividends in the future. Further analysis shows that our results are not likely vulnerable to endogeneity.     

Estimation and specification analysis of models of dividend behavior based on censored panel data

Dividends move in discrete jumps. Moreover, some companies pay dividends, others do not. Both these aspects necessitate the use of limited dependent variable models in the analysis of dividend behavior. Models of dividend behavior usually ignore these problems and treat dividends as a continuous variable. The present paper analyzes dividend behavior using panel data on 649 firms for 12 years (1976–1987). The model used is a censored regression model which allows for firm-specific and time effects. It is estimated using the maximum likelihood method under three different error covariance specifications. Based on specification tests, it is argued that it is important to allow for the zero observations, industry effects, and firm-specific and time effects in the estimation of models of dividend behavior.     

Insider trading returns and dividend signals

The literature shows that insider trading activities and dividends contain information content and serve as signals to firm value. If insider return is a proxy for information asymmetry, we should expect a positive relation between dividends and insider returns. Using a sample of unambiguous (good and bad) news concerning earnings and dividend announcements from Hong Kong firms, we show that information asymmetry is stronger for bad news firms with insider sales than good news firms with insider purchases. In addition, we improve the methodology of Khang and King [Khang, K., & King, T. H. D. (2006). Does dividend policy relate to cross-sectional variation in information asymmetry? Evidence from returns to insider trades. Financial Management, 35, 71–94] and provide evidence that dividend is a credible signal for measuring information asymmetry.     

Evolving corporate governance and the dividends behaviour regime in Japan

This study investigates empirically the implications which the changing ownership structure and control transfers in the Japanese corporate market may have for the dividend policy of listed firms. The results show that firms with more concentrated ownership may distribute fewer dividends, as ownership concentration reduces distribution pressure from the capital market. Moreover, we show that institutional shareholding, both financial and non-financial, enables corporations to pay lesser dividends and also that the unwinding of the cross-shareholdings allows for efficiency gain and provides impetus to pay higher dividends. The recent pattern of increasing individual shareholding, both of domestic and foreign private individuals, is consistently associated with a higher dividend payment. Furthermore, managerial ownership has negative effects on dividends payouts and is not associated with the earnings of firms. The results suggest that government ownership does not have any significant impact on the payment of dividends. Moreover, our results support the principle of the dividends relevancy and the choice of an appropriate dividends policy affects the value of the firm.     

Exploring the causal effect of religious piety on dividend policy: evidence from historical religious identification

Theory suggests that religious piety is associated with greater risk aversion and more conservative financial policies. Returns to shareholders through dividends are much more certain than returns through capital gains expected to be realized far into the future. We hypothesize that religious piety leads to a higher likelihood of dividend payments. We exploit the variation in religious piety across the US counties and estimate the effect of religion on dividend policy. To draw a causal inference, we use historical religious piety in 1971 as the instrument. Our two-stage least squares results confirm that religious piety induces firms to pay larger dividends.     

On the marginal source of investment funds

Under the ‘new view’ of dividend taxation developed by Auerbach (Quarterly Journal of Economics 1979;93:433-446), Bradford (Journal of Public Economics 1981;15:1-22) and King (Public Policy and the Corporation, Chapman & Hall, London, 1977), the marginal source of finance for new investment projects is retained earnings. In this case, the tax advantage of retaining earnings precisely offsets the double taxation of subsequent dividends: taxes on dividends have no impact on the investment incentives of firms using retentions as a marginal source of funds and paying dividends with residual cash flows. We show that the same invariance with respect to dividend taxes may hold under weaker conditions with respect to the source of funds, if the use of funds follows the same pattern. We find evidence that there is significant heterogeneity in our sample of US firms, with some firms exhibiting dividend behavior consistent with this expanded version of the new view, and others exhibiting behavior consistent with the traditional view that retained earnings are not an important marginal source of funds.     

Firm location and corporate dividend policy: evidence from China

We investigate the relation between a firm’s geographic location and its dividend policy. We find that firms headquartered in the National Central Cities, cities with high-speed rail (HSR), and with shorter distance to the nearest National Central City pay higher dividends. We find evidence that attributes the higher dividends to an increase in the number of analysts’ site visits, greater information transparency, and a reduction in financial constraints. Finally, the observed increases in dividends tend to be stronger for firms that benefit the most from improvements in the information environment after the arrival of HSR, such as firms located in regions without regional airports, firms located in areas with a lower regional gross domestic product, firms located a greater distance to the closest National Central City, and firms that are smaller, state-owned, have a shorter listing history in the exchanges, and have a more concentrated ownership.     

Dividend policy and investor pressure

The economics of dividend policy has focused on the single tight narrative that dividends keep managers honest, mitigating concerns that they over-invest. This article provides a critique of that agency narrative, arguing that pressure from short-term focused investors, executives and board members pushes the firm into preemptive actions of returning too much cash via dividends. We analyze three channels of influence for investor pressure through 1) threat of takeovers, 2) shareholder value oriented corporate governance, measured by director independence and board equity incentives, and 3) trading and institutional ownership patterns. We find that firms adopt a higher dividend payout to discourage takeover bids. Also, FTSE 100 firms, that are most focused on shareholder value governance in the form of equity-based compensation and a higher share of independent directors, display a higher dividend payout. Frequency of trading and ownership by transient investors seeking current profits also predict increased dividend payout. Traditional agency theory, focused on dividends as a tool for managerial discipline, is not strongly supported by the results, which rather support a narrative of short-term investor pressure on firms irrespective of investment opportunities.     

Do corporate governance mechanisms affect cash dividends? An empirical investigation of UK firms

The study examines whether corporate governance mechanisms and the compliance with good governance practice are related to cash dividends. In particular, the study assesses the effect of institutional ownership and board structure on the decision to pay cash dividends. A study on UK firms is interesting because firms are expected to voluntarily structure governance mechanisms based on their own needs. We find that institutional owners positively affect cash dividend payments, suggesting that UK institutions are effective in forcing firms to disgorge cash. There is limited evidence that independent directors affect the cash dividends. The results also show that firm specifics affect the cash dividends, namely, business risk, firm size, and leverage ratio. The results are consistent across several robustness checks.     

Corporate governance and dividend pay-out policy in Germany

A new explanation of why dividends may be informative is put forward in this paper. We find evidence that dividends signal the severity of the conflict between the large, controlling owner and small, outside shareholders. Accordingly, dividend change announcements provide new information about this conflict. To test the rent extraction hypothesis and discriminate it from the cash flow signaling explanation, we utilize information on the ownership and control structure of the firm. We analyze 736 dividend change announcements in Germany over the period 1992-1998 and find significantly larger negative wealth effects in the order of two percentage points for companies where the ownership and control structure makes the expropriation of minority shareholders more likely than for other firms. The rent extraction hypothesis also has implications for the levels of dividends paid. We find larger holdings of the largest owner to reduce, while larger holdings of the second largest shareholder to increase the dividend pay-out ratio. Deviations from the one-share-one-vote rule due to pyramidal and cross-ownership structures are also associated with larger negative wealth effects and lower pay-out ratios. Finally, using Lintner's (American Economic Review 46 (2) (1956) 97-113) model of dividend determination we find corroborating results. The presence of a second largest shareholder with a considerable equity stake makes a crucial difference in the governance of the firm. Our results call for better minority shareholder rights protection and increased transparency in the course of European Capital Market Reform.     

Dividend taxation and intertemporal tax arbitrage

We analyze the effects of changes in dividend tax policy using a life-cycle model of the firm, in which new firms first access equity markets, then grow internally, and finally pay dividends when they have reached steady state. We find that unanticipated permanent changes in tax rates have only small effects on aggregate investment, since macroeconomic dynamics are dominated by mature firms for which dividend taxation is not distortionary. Anticipated or temporary dividend tax changes, on the other hand, create incentives for firms to engage in inter-temporal tax arbitrage so as to reduce investors' tax burden. For example, a temporary tax cut – the type most likely to be enacted by policymakers – induces firms to accelerate dividend payments while tax rates are low, which reduces their cash holdings and makes them capital-constrained when large investment opportunities arise. This can significantly lower aggregate investment for periods after the tax cut.     

The changing role of dividends: a firm-level study from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century

Abstract .  We investigate the changes in dividend policy for one of North America's oldest banks (and Canada's first bank), Bank of Montreal, over time by considering the relationships between dividends, prices and earnings for this prominent firm. In the early part of the sample we find that annual dividend and earnings changes are highly variable, with dividend changes following changes in earnings and a larger portion of investors' returns coming from dividends. Since World War II dividend policy has been characterized by more stable and gradual increases in dividends, with more of investors' returns coming from capital gains. Overall, our results suggest that investors' perception of dividends has changed over time, allowing management to pay smaller dividends and reinvest funds in the firm.     

Does dividend tax impede competition for corporate charters?

We develop a model of jurisdictional competition for corporate charters among the states in which a firm’s agency cost depends on the federal dividend income tax rate and the takeover regulations of its domicile state. When firms are mobile across states, the federal dividend income tax rate affects both the intensity of competition among the states and the equilibrium level of state takeover regulations. Our model shows that increasing dividend tax rate weakens the competition for corporate charters under a condition: dividend-paying and the market for corporate control are complementary corporate governance mechanisms. This condition holds empirically, suggesting that dividend tax not only discourages firms from paying dividends but also weakens their corporate governance by disincentivizing states to improve their corporate laws.     

Corporate social irresponsibility,CEO overconfidence,and stock price crash risk

This study examines whether and how corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) influences stock price crash risk for firms with overconfident CEOs. We find that the positive association between CEO overconfidence and stock price crash risk as shown in prior studies is significantly weakened when firms have higher CSI concerns. As a result, our intriguing findings demonstrate that investors are less surprised at the negative news hoarded by overconfident CEOs of CSI firms, possibly because they are already aware of and have previously reacted to the socially irresponsible behavior in their daily operations.     

Stock market reaction to dividend announcements: Evidence from the Greek stock market

This study investigates the market reaction to cash dividend announcements for the period 2000–2004 employing data from the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). In particular, the paper examines both the stock price and trading volume response to dividend distribution announcements. Dividend distributions in Greece demonstrate noticeable differences to those of the US, the UK and other developed markets. First, dividends in Greece are paid annually rather than quarterly or semi-annually. Second, the Greek corporate laws 2190/1920 and 148/1967 specifically designate the minimum amount for distribution from the taxed corporate profits. Third, neither tax on dividends nor on capital gains was imposed during the period under examination. Fourth, Greek listed firms are characterized by high ownership concentration where major owners are usually involved in management and therefore have less need for dividend announcements as an information source. Despite this neutralized information and tax environment, we document significant market reaction to dividend change announcements, lending support to the “information content of dividends hypothesis”.     

Determinants of dividend payout and dividend propensity in an emerging market,Iran: an application of the LASSO

Accurate prediction of dividends is important for market participants such as investors, firm managers, and monitoring authorities, as they can, respectively, invest, manage dividend decisions, and monitor dividend policies more effectively. We identify the most relevant variables for predicting the dividend payout of the firms in an emerging market, Iran, using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). The advantages of the LASSO include: enhancing the prediction accuracy of the dividend model, improving interpretation of the results, and applicability to high-dimensional data. We obtain several results. First, some fundamental determinants of dividends in the industrialized economies such as market-to-book ratio and current ratio, do not play a role in deciding dividends in Iran. Second, LASSO-selected variables outperform the variables commonly used in the literature in terms of model fit and prediction accuracy. Third, business risk, leverage, return on assets and effective tax rate are the most important predictors of dividend propensity of the Iranian firms. Fourth, if the support vector machine algorithm, an often-used classification method, is combined with LASSO-selected variables, it can better discriminate between dividend-paying and dividend non-paying firms than other methods such as logistic regression and linear discriminant analysis.

Abbreviations: LASSO: Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator; TSE: Tehran Stock Exchange; RMSE: Root Mean Squared Errors; MAE: Mean Absolute Errors; ROC: Receiver Operating Characteristics; GMM: Generalized Method of Moments; MENA: Middle East and North Africa region; AIC: Akaike Information Criterion; BIC: Bayesian Information Criterion; LARS: Least Angel Regression; OLS: Ordinary Least Squares; AUC: Area Under Curve; BS: Brier Score ; OA: Overall Accuracy; LDA: Linear Discriminant Analysis; SVM: Support Vector Machine algorithm; LR: Logistic Regression.     

THE IDIOSYNCRATIC PATTERN OF RUSSIAN CORPORATE DIVIDEND POLICY DURING ITS FORMATIVE ERA

In general, the dividend payout pattern for Russian corporations during their formative period from 1998 to 2006 was seemingly independent of company earnings, size, growth opportunities and capital structure, as such firm policies appear not to conform to any of the main extant dividend payout theories. The only exception we find is that of utility firms, which were inclined to pay consistent dividends. Utility firms tended to be partly owned by the state and were subject to price regulation. Consequently, they may have had limited investment prospects. Our findings suggest that dividend payout policies in non‐market economies may be driven by non‐traditional determinants, such as the state's overall industrial strategy.     

IMPACT OF DIVIDEND‐PROTECTED EMPLOYEE STOCK OPTIONS ON PAYOUT POLICIES: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN

Abstract. This study used a sample of 1035 Taiwanese firms to examine the impact of dividend protected employee stock options on stock repurchase and cash dividend policies from 2000 to 2005. This study finds a positive relationship between cash dividends and executive options, implying that executives holding stock options might prefer to distribute cash dividends to boost the stock price. This result, unlike in earlier studies, arises from the dividend protected characteristic of Taiwanese employee stock options. Finally, free cash flow, firm profitability, level of debt, investment opportunities and firm size are found to considerably influence payout decisions.     

Does prior record matter in the wealth effect of open-market share repurchase announcements?

This study investigates whether prior experience of share repurchases matters in the market reactions to the subsequent repurchase announcements. Specifically, we study the prior record on actual buybacks and post-announcement stock performance. We find that upon the announcement of share repurchases, stock markets not only respond more positively to those made by firms that have better record on actual buyback following their previous repurchase plan announcements, but also experience a stronger reaction for announcing firms with better stock performance after prior repurchase announcements. These results hold even after controlling for other variables that are found important in influencing the market reactions to repurchase announcements.