A Time-Series Analysis of Corporate Payout Policies

I conduct a time-series analysis of corporate payout policies that accounts for the dynamic nature of these decisions and for the interaction among investment decisions and payout policies. The estimation is done with a VAR model of investments, earnings, total payout, and the split of the total payout between dividends and share repurchases. I control for changes in the legal treatment of share repurchases in 1982 and for changes in the relative taxation of dividends and capital gains. I find that: (i) an increase in the taxation of capital gains relative to dividends shifts the split of total payout away from share repurchase and toward dividends; (ii) corporate investment decisions lead payout policies and not the other way around; (iii) increases in corporate total payout are associated with long-term subsequent increases in earnings; (iv) changes in the composition of corporate payout away from share repurchases and toward dividends are associated with subsequent increases in earnings.     

Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence from New Zealand

Using a model based on Bhattacharyya (2007), we predict a positive (negative) relationship between the earnings retention ratio (dividend payout ratio) and managerial compensation. We use tobit regression to analyse data for New Zealand firms' dividend payouts over the period 1997–2015 and find results consistent with Bhattacharyya (2007). These results hold when the definition of payout is modified to incorporate both common dividends and common share repurchases. Our results indicate that corporate dividend policy among New Zealand firms is perhaps best understood by considering the dividend payout ratio, rather than the level of, or changes in, cash dividends alone.     

Dividends and share repurchases during the COVID-19 economic crisis

In this article, we examine dividends and share repurchases of S&P 1500 firms during the COVID-19 crisis characterized by the stock market crash and a relatively quick stock price recovery propelled by technology stocks. We find that the great majority of firms either maintain or increase the level of dividends during the crisis period. Yet, the relation between the dividend payout and reported earnings is negative and significant. This relation also holds for other types of payouts, including share repurchases and special dividends. Moreover, we find that both forecasted and realized earnings of up to 1 year into the future are negatively associated with current dividends, implying that existing payout policies are unsustainable in the longer term. Surprisingly, the difference-in-differences test shows that firms strongly affected by the COVID-19 crisis have higher dividend payouts (relative to net earnings) compared to unaffected firms. The same test indicates that strongly affected firms significantly reduce repurchases.     

The evolving relation between dividends and flexible payouts: A different evolution

We study payout by UK listed companies during 1993–2018. Regular dividends remain the dominant channel, but flexible payouts (special dividends and repurchases) have grown, and they make total payout more responsive to earnings. Flexible payouts are used to augment regular dividends: few companies pay out by flexible means only, and tests indicate that they augment rather than replace regular dividends. Comparison with US evidence shows that UK companies make greater use of dividends (including specials) in relation to repurchases, and have a greater willingness to change regular dividend per share.     

Institutional Holdings and Payout Policy

We examine the relation between institutional holdings and payout policy in U.S. public firms. We find that payout policy affects institutional holdings. Institutions avoid firms that do not pay dividends. However, among dividend‐paying firms they prefer firms that pay fewer dividends. Our evidence indicates that institutions prefer firms that repurchase shares, and regular repurchasers over nonregular repurchasers. Higher institutional holdings or a concentration of holdings do not cause firms to increase their dividends, their repurchases, or their total payout. Our results do not support models that predict that high dividends attract institutional clientele, or models that predict that institutions cause firms to increase payout.     

How Does Asymmetric Information Affect Catering Behavior?

This study examines the association between information asymmetry and payout policy, and how asymmetric information affects catering behavior. Using forecast error and forecast dispersion as information asymmetry variables, this study finds that the more information asymmetry the firms face, the less likely they will increase dividends. Meanwhile, the effects of information asymmetry dominate over those of catering incentives for managers to decide dividend policy. Finally, our empirical results demonstrate that the signaling theory holds when dividend yield is high or market underestimates the EPS of firms. In addition, companies use share repurchases as a substitute for dividend increases, and take retained earnings into account when making dividend policies.     

What do dividends tell us about earnings quality?

Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes in the distribution of earnings—cross-sectional variation has increased, with increasing left skewness—as well as in corporate payout policy, with many fewer firms paying dividends and the emergence of stock repurchases. We investigate whether the informativeness of payout policy with respect to earnings quality changes over this period. We find that the reported earnings of dividend-paying firms are more persistent than those of other firms and that this relation is remarkably stable over time. We also find that dividend payers are less likely to report losses and those losses that they do report tend to be transitory losses driven by special items. These results do not hold as strongly for stock repurchases, consistent with them representing less of a commitment than dividends.     

The Effect of Past Earnings and Dividend Patterns on the Information Content of Dividends When Earnings Are Reduced

This study pursues two objectives: first, to provide evidence on the information content of dividend policy, conditional on past earnings and dividend patterns prior to an annual earnings decline; second, to examine the effect of the magnitude of low earnings realizations on dividend policy when firms have more‐or‐less established dividend payouts. The information content of dividend policy for firms that incur earnings reductions following long patterns of positive earnings and dividends has been examined ( DeAngelo et al., 1992, 1996 ; Charitou, 2000 ). No research has examined the association between the informativeness of dividend policy changes in the event of an earnings drop, relative to varying patterns of past earnings and dividends. Our dataset consists of 4,873 U.S. firm‐year observations over the period 1986–2005. Our evidence supports the hypotheses that, among earnings‐reducing or loss firms, longer patterns of past earnings and dividends: (a) strengthen the information conveyed by dividends regarding future earnings, and (b) enhance the role of the magnitude of low earnings realizations in explaining dividend policy decisions, in that earnings hold more information content that explains the likelihood of dividend cuts the longer the past earnings and dividend patterns. Both results stem from the stylized facts that managers aim to maintain consistency with respect to historic payout policy, being reluctant to proceed with dividend reductions, and that this reluctance is higher the more established is the historic payout policy.     

The evolving relation between earnings,dividends, and stock repurchases

This paper examines how the relation between earnings and payout policy has evolved over the last three decades. Three principal groups of payers have emerged: firms that pay dividends and make regular repurchases, firms that make regular repurchases, and firms that make occasional repurchases. Firms that only pay dividends are largely extinct. Repurchases are increasingly used in place of dividends, even for firms that continue to pay dividends. While other factors help explain the timing of repurchases, the overall level of repurchases is fundamentally determined by earnings. The results suggest that repurchases are now the dominant form of payout.     

Patterns in payout policy and payout channel choice

We study the decision to distribute funds as well as the choice of the payout channel (i.e. dividends, repurchases, or both). Our analysis of the payout policy of UK firms demonstrates that the importance of share repurchases is increasing, but dividends still constitute a vast proportion of the total payout. We document that there is a relation between the presence of blockholders and the choice of the payout channel. We find that payout decisions are influenced by directors’ liquidity needs but are not consistent with the agency theory of payout. We also reject the tax-clientele explanation for payout choices.     

The Dividend Substitution Hypothesis: Australian Evidence

In a perfect capital market firms are indifferent to either dividends or repurchases as payout mechanisms, suggesting that the two payout methods should be perfect substitutes. Empirical research at the single country level, as well as cross country studies, provide evidence that dividends and repurchases act as substitutes (the dividend substitution hypothesis), and that the tax treatment of dividends versus capital gains affects this relation. Australia, which operates under a full dividend imputation system, has two types of repurchases: on‐ and off‐market. On‐market repurchases are taxed as capital gains while off‐market repurchases comprise a large dividend component carrying valuable tax credits. Australia thus provides a natural setting to investigate how the tax treatment of proceeds affects the dividend substitution hypothesis. Dividend substitution is found to exist for on‐market repurchases but not for off‐market repurchases, thus providing further support for the idea that the tax treatment of proceeds affects the substitutability of repurchases and dividends.     

Operating performance following dividend decreases and omissions

Using quarterly data and benchmarks based on past performance characteristics, I find little evidence that earnings change following 661 dividend decreases and 484 dividend omissions between 1980 and 1998. The exception is that earnings deteriorate during the quarter of dividend omissions, but they recover within a couple of quarters. My results further suggest that the lack of a more pronounced earnings decline is neither attributable to a contemporaneous and confounding increase in share repurchases, to earnings management, nor to improving investment opportunities, and the results are similar for firms that are not predicted to cut dividend payouts based on their financial flexibility. Instead, I find some evidence that the negative stock price reaction reflects the dismal performance during the quarter of the announcement, especially for firms that omit dividends, and that the market interprets the dividend announcements too pessimistically.     

Voluntary disclosures around share repurchases

Managers increase the frequency and magnitude of bad news announcements during the 1-month period prior to repurchasing shares. To a lesser extent, they also increase the frequency and magnitude of good news announcements during the 1-month period following their repurchases. These results are consistent with Barclay and Smith's [1988. Corporate payout policy: Cash dividends versus open-market repurchases. Journal of Financial Economics 22, 61–82.] conjecture that share repurchases, unlike dividends, create incentives for managers to manipulate information flows. We further show that managers provide downward-biased earnings forecasts before repurchases and that managers’ propensity to alter information flows prior to share repurchases increases with their ownership interest in the firm.     

The Differences Between Stock Splits and Stock Dividends: Evidence on the Retained Earnings Hypothesis

Abstract:  This paper investigates stock dividends and stock splits on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (CSE), which is of interest because several of the more recent explanations for a stock market reaction can be ruled out. The main findings are that the announcement effect of stock dividends as well as stock splits is closely related to changes in a firm's payout policy, but that the relationship differs for the two types of events. A stock dividend implies an increase in nominal share capital and hence a decrease in retained earnings. Firms announcing stock dividends finance growth entirely by debt (explaining the need for an increase in nominal share capital) and retained earnings. Basically all firms announcing a stock dividend with a split factor of less than two can also afford to increase their total cash dividends permanently, at least proportionally to the increase in share capital, leading to a significant announcement effect of 4.23%. Firms announcing a stock dividend with a split factor of two or more also increase total cash dividends permanently, but less than proportionally to the increase in share capital. This leads to an insignificant announcement effect of 0.08%. These findings support a retained earnings/signaling hypothesis. For stock splits, no separate announcement effect was found when a firm's payout policy was controlled for. This lends support to the idea that a stock split per se is a cosmetic event on the CSE and is also consistent with the fact that making a stock split on the CSE is virtually cost free.     

Tax reform and payout policy: Do shareholder clienteles or payout policy adjust?

Changes in taxation of corporate dividends offer excellent opportunities to study dividend clientele effects. We explore payout policies and ownership structures around a major tax reform that took place in Finland in 2004. Consistent with dividend clienteles affecting firms' dividend policy decisions, we find that Finnish firms altered their dividend policies based on the changed tax incentives of their largest shareholders. While firms adjust their payout policies, our results also indicate that ownership structures of Finnish firms also changed around the 2004 reform, consistent with shareholder clienteles adjusting to the new tax system.     

Share repurchases,catering, and dividend substitution

We first extend Baker and Wurgler's (2004a) catering theory of dividends to share repurchases. Consistent with the notion that firms cater to investor demand for share repurchases, we report evidence that the market's time-varying repurchase premium positively affects firms' choice to repurchase shares. Next, we use the catering behavior as a novel framework for testing the dividend substitution hypothesis. Consistent with the notion that managers consider dividends and share repurchases to be substitute payout mechanisms, we find that the dividend premium negatively affects the repurchase choice, whereas the repurchase premium negatively affects the choice to pay dividends.     

Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence

Bhattacharyya (2007 ) develops a model in which compensation contracts motivate high‐quality managers to retain and invest firm earnings, while low‐quality managers are motivated to distribute income to shareholders. In equilibrium, the model shows that there is a positive (negative) relationship between the earnings retention ratio (dividend payout ratio) and managerial compensation. Results of tests of US data show that executive compensation is positively (negatively) associated with earnings retention (dividend payout). Our results indicate that corporate dividend policy is perhaps best understood by considering the payout ratio (dividends divided by earnings), rather than the level of cash dividends alone.     

Do senior citizens prefer dividends? Local clienteles vs. firm characteristics

We examine the payout policy of U.S. firms over the period 1980–2008. Prior research indicates that firm characteristics, managerial preferences, and investor clienteles are all important factors in setting payout policy. Counter to the oft-reported positive relation between senior citizens and the use of dividends, we find no such significant relation. Our results indicate that either senior citizens are indifferent between dividends and repurchases, or that if seniors do demand dividends, they have no influence over firm payout policy. The evolution of firm characteristics, including the average firm size, age, and volatility of earnings over time, best explains payout policy.     

Dividends and share repurchases in the European Union

We examine cash dividends and share repurchases from 1989 to 2005 in the 15 nations that were members of the European Union before May 2004. As in the United States, the fraction of European firms paying dividends declines, while total real dividends paid increase and share repurchases surge. We also show that financial reporting frequency is associated with higher payout, and that privatized companies account for almost one-quarter of total cash dividends and share repurchases. Our regression analyses indicate that increasing fractions of retained earnings to equity do not increase the likelihood of cash payouts, whereas company age does.     

Dividend policy and permanence of earnings

We examine managers’ adjustment of dividends to information about earnings. We base our analysis on a ‘permanent earnings’ model of dividend behavior, which implies that dividends are changed primarily in response to permanent changes in earnings; transitory earnings changes have little or no effect on dividends. Within the permanent earnings framework, the permanent component of earnings may be the predominant factor affecting dividend payouts, or it may be one of the important factors affecting dividends. In the former case earnings and dividends are co-integrated; in the latter they are not. Using a sample of 337 firms over the 40 year period from 1950–1989, we find the data to be strongly consistent with the permanent earnings model. We also find that the data are more consistent with a model that relates dividend and earnings changes rather than levels. Thus, we conclude that earnings and dividends are not co-integrated. This contrasts with the implicitly co-integrated (levels) dividend model of Lintner (1956), and indicates that factors other than the permanent component of earnings, such as tax policy, clientele effects, transaction costs, etc. may have a significant impact on the long-run behavior of dividends.