Institutional ownership,volatility and dividends

We find that the sign of the correlation between institutional ownership and volatility depends on the firm’s dividend policy: institutional ownership is negatively (positively) related to volatility among non-dividend (dividend) paying stocks. The empirical results are consistent with an interaction between institutional preference for low volatility and the tendency of higher levels of institutional ownership to increase volatility through their trading behavior. This result is robust to many control variables and possible endogeneity concerns. Supporting our conjecture that institutions herd on dividend signals we find that the correlation between turnover and institutional ownership is higher for dividend paying stocks, and that the positive correlation between turnover and institutional ownership is higher on dividend declaration days. Finally, we also find that the level of institutional ownership drops following an increase in volatility for both dividend payers and non-payers, and that volatility rises following increased institutional ownership for dividend paying stocks.     

Ownership structure and tax-friendly dividends

The paper examines the existence of tax-based dividend clienteles using the novel environment of Australia, which has operated a full dividend imputation system since 1987. The analysis jointly focuses on the tax-based preferences of five categories of shareholders, including both domestic and foreign-domiciled shareholder classes. Incorporating the dividend franking percentage as a direct measure of the degree of tax benefit associated with dividends, strong evidence supporting the existence of tax-based dividend clienteles is present for both domestic and foreign shareholder categories. This includes domestic corporate blockholders and company directors, and local institutional investors following tax reforms in 2000, and foreign institutional shareholders which, alternatively, demand lower dividends and dividend franking. These findings persist after considering the effect of share repurchases, and under various model specifications controlling for unobserved firm heterogeneity and potential endogeneity between ownership structure and dividend payout policy.     

Yes, dividends are disappearing: Worldwide evidence

This study examines the patterns in payout policies worldwide. Utilizing data from a sample of more than 17,000 companies from 33 different countries, we find evidence in support of a significant worldwide decline in the propensity to pay dividends. Most of the decline is due to the payout policies of smaller and less profitable firms with comparatively more investment opportunities. We find that larger firms, those with higher profitability, and firms with low growth opportunities have a greater propensity to pay dividends. The proportion of dividend payers varies substantially across industries as well. However, the proportion of firms paying dividends has declined over time, even after firms’ characteristics have been controlled for. Moreover, aggregate dividends are highly concentrated in that they are paid only by a small group of firms. Our findings indicate that there has been a significant decline in the average dividend payout ratios over the years. The decline in the mean dividend payout ratios as well as the proportion of payers is much more pronounced in civil law countries.     

What do firms do when dividend tax rates change? An examination of alternative payout responses

This paper investigates whether investor-level taxes affect corporate payout policy decisions. We predict and find a surge of special dividends in the final months of 2010 and 2012, immediately before individual-level dividend tax rates were expected to increase. We also find evidence that immediately before the expected tax increases, firms altered the timing of their regular dividend payments by shifting what would normally be January regular dividend payments into the preceding December. To our knowledge this is the first evidence in the literature about changes in the timing of regular dividend payments in response to tax law changes. For both actions (specials and shifting), we find that it was more likely for a firm to respond to individual-level tax rates if insiders owned a relatively large amount of the firm. Overall, our paper provides evidence that managers consider individual-level taxes in making corporate payout decisions.     

Have the tax benefits of debt been overestimated?

We re-examine the claim that many corporations are underleveraged in that they fail to take full advantage of debt tax shields. We show prior results suggesting underleverage stems from biased estimates of tax benefits from interest deductions. We develop improved estimates of marginal tax rates using a non-parametric procedure that produces more accurate estimates of the distribution of future taxable income. We show that additional debt would provide firms with much smaller tax benefits than previously thought, and when expected distress costs and difficult-to-measure non-debt tax shields are also considered, it appears plausible that most firms have tax-efficient capital structures.     

The irrelevance of the MM dividend irrelevance theorem

Contrary to Miller and Modigliani [1961. Dividend policy, growth, and the valuation of shares. Journal of Business 34, 411–433], payout policy is not irrelevant and investment policy is not the sole determinant of value, even in frictionless markets. MM ask “Do companies with generous distribution policies consistently sell at a premium above those with niggardly payouts?” But MM's analysis does not address this question because the joint effect of their assumptions is to mandate 100% free cash flow payout in every period, thereby rendering “niggardly payouts” infeasible and forcing distributions to a global optimum. Irrelevance obtains, but in an economically vacuous sense because the firm's opportunity set is artificially constrained to payout policies that fully distribute free cash flow. When MM's assumptions are relaxed to allow retention, payout policy matters in exactly the same sense that investment policy does. Moreover (i) the standard Fisherian model is empirically refutable, predicting that firms will make large payouts in present value terms, (ii) only when payout policy is optimized will the present value of distributions equal the PV of project cash flows, (iii) the NPV rule for investments is not sufficient to ensure value maximization, rather an analogous rule for payout policy is also necessary, and (iv) Black's [1976. The dividend puzzle. Journal of Portfolio Management 2, 5–8] “dividend puzzle” is a non-puzzle because it is rooted in the mistaken idea that MM's irrelevance theorem applies to payout/retention decisions, which it does not.     

Institutional tax clienteles and payout policy

This paper employs heterogeneity in institutional shareholder tax characteristics to identify the relation between firm payout policy and tax incentives. Analysis of a panel of firms matched with the tax characteristics of the clients of their institutional shareholders indicates that “dividend-averse” institutions are significantly less likely to hold shares in firms with larger dividend payouts. This relation between the tax preferences of institutional shareholders and firm payout policy may reflect dividend-averse institutions gravitating towards low dividend paying firms or managers adapting their payout policies to the interests of their institutional shareholders. Evidence is provided that both effects are operative. Plausibly exogenous changes in payout policy result in shifting institutional ownership patterns. Similarly, exogenous changes in the tax cost of institutional investors receiving dividends results in changes in firm dividend policy.     

Taxes,tenders and the design of Australian off‐market share repurchases

In designing off‐market (self‐tender offer) share repurchases, Australian companies must consider the resulting potential tax benefits for different investor groups with consequent effects upon the supply of stock tendered by holders and the ultimate tender outcome. We develop and estimate a model of the stock supply curve that demonstrates less than perfect elasticity and incomplete tax arbitrage arising from ‘participation risk’ for potential arbitrageurs. We are able to estimate the extent of disequilibrium in prices involved in fixed‐price repurchases and show that it is substantial. We show that Australian Tax Office restrictions on the tender price range for Dutch auctions have meant that non‐participating shareholders have foregone some potential benefits through the transfer of tax benefits to (primarily institutional, low tax rate) successful tender participants. The results provide support for legislative changes proposed in 2009 (but not implemented as of mid 2011), which removed constraints on the allowable range of repurchase prices.     

Independent directors and the propensity to pay dividends

Using data from 944 public companies in 2006, I examine how a firm's propensity to pay dividends is related to (i) board independence and (ii) independent directors' tenure, number of board seats (busy) and equity incentive compensation. After controlling for the effects of traditional economic, CEO entrenchment and ownership determinants of the propensity to pay dividends, I find evidence of a positive association between the propensity to pay and (i) board independence and (ii) director tenure, and a negative association between the propensity to pay and (i) busy directors and (ii) greater equity incentive compensation in the director pay structure. I find consistent results when the decision is to pay cash dividends or repurchase shares. In further tests, I find that equity incentive compensation in the independent director pay structure is the most pervasive determinant across other dividend measures such as dividend payout, total payout and repurchases. Overall, the findings suggest that the characteristics of independent directors are important determinants of the payout policy. The results also suggest that future corporate governance research could benefit from incorporating characteristics of independent directors rather than limiting governance measures to board independence especially when recent empirical evidence (Linck et al., 2008, 2009) shows convergence, and therefore, narrowing variation in the proportion of outsiders and insiders on a board.     

Leverage and debt maturity choices by undiversified owner-managers

We examine the financing choices of undiversified owner-managers in a continuous-time model. Managers' financing choices as well as their dynamic equity stakes, which trade off their private benefits and the costs they incur due to their lack of diversification, are simultaneously and endogenously determined. Our analysis leads to the novel, empirically testable implications that leverage increases with the drift or expected growth rate of the firm's earnings. Debt maturity varies non-monotonically in a U-shaped manner with the project's drift and with its volatility. The predicted variations of leverage and debt maturity with the actual drift of earnings (controlling for the risk-neutral drift) are key implications of our theory that arise from the incorporation of agency conflicts between undiversified managers and well-diversified outside investors. They cannot, therefore, be obtained in traditional capital structure models in which all agents are well-diversified. Our predictions for the variation of leverage and debt maturity with project characteristics potentially reconcile empirical findings that are not consistent with previous theories. We also derive additional novel implications that link manager-specific characteristics - the discount rate or “degree of myopia” and the risk aversion - to leverage and debt maturity. These implications provide support for growing empirical evidence of the significant impact of manager characteristics and manager “fixed effects” on corporate financial policies.     

Comparing different explanations of the volatility trend

We analyze the puzzling behavior of the volatility of individual stock returns over the past few decades. The literature has provided many different explanations to the trend in volatility and this paper tests the viability of the different explanations. Virtually all current theoretical arguments that are provided for the trend in the average level of volatility over time lend themselves to explanations about the difference in volatility levels between firms in the cross-section. We therefore focus separately on the cross-sectional and time-series explanatory power of the different proxies. We fail to find a proxy that is able to explain both dimensions well. In particular, we find that Cao et al. [Cao, C., Simin, T.T., Zhao, J., 2008. Can growth options explain the trend in idiosyncratic risk? Review of Financial Studies 21, 2599-2633] market-to-book ratio tracks average volatility levels well, but has no cross-sectional explanatory power. On the other hand, the low-price proxy suggested by Brandt et al. [Brandt, M.W., Brav, A., Graham, J.R., Kumar, A., 2010. The idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: time trend or speculative episodes. Review of Financial Studies 23, 863-899] has much cross-sectional explanatory power, but has virtually no time-series explanatory power. We also find that the different proxies do not explain the trend in volatility in the period prior to 1995 (R-squared of virtually zero), but explain rather well the trend in volatility at the turn of the Millennium (1995-2005).     

How do bond investors perceive dividend payouts?

We explore how bond investors view corporate cash distributions through dividends and how that view influences corporate cost of debt. Explaining between 45 and 67 percent of variance in credit spreads at the time of issuance, our model reveals a non-linear association between dividend payouts and investment return expected by bondholders. In particular, while bondholders view cash disbursements in small amounts as a positive signal, large dividend payouts are viewed negatively. Our results thus provide support for both the signaling hypothesis and for the agency-cost-of-debt hypothesis. The results are robust even after controlling for firm size, growth opportunities, profitability, leverage, business risk, asset tangibility, and term structure. Exploiting the 2003 dividend tax cut as an exogenous shock, we demonstrate that our results are not vulnerable to endogeneity problems. Finally, we find no evidence of corporations timing the payouts strategically to influence the cost of debt.     

Accelerated share repurchases

Accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) are credible commitments by firms to repurchase shares immediately. Including an ASR in a repurchase program reduces the flexibility that firms have to alter an announced program in response to subsequent changes in the price and liquidity of its shares, unexpected shocks to cash flow and/or investment, etc. Thus, we investigate whether firms' decisions to include ASRs in their repurchase programs are associated with factors expected to influence the costs of lost flexibility and the benefits of enhanced credibility and immediacy. We find robust evidence consistent with the costs of lost flexibility and the benefits of credibility and immediacy being important determinants of ASR adoption. Additionally, we find that ASR announcements are associated with positive average abnormal stock returns.     

Dividend policy: Reconciling DD with MM

Miller and Modigliani [1961. Dividend policy, growth and the valuation of shares. Journal of Business 34, 411–433] establish the irrelevance of dividend policy in a perfect capital market. DeAngelo and DeAngelo [2006. The irrelevance of the MM dividend irrelevance theorem. Journal of Financial Economics 79, 293–315.] suggest the Miller-Modigliani analysis is flawed and consequently their central conclusion is incorrect. The purpose of this paper is to show the vital role played by stock repurchases and agency costs in reconciling the two opposing views.     

Do Emerging Market Firms Follow Different Dividend Policies From U.S. Firms?

We find that emerging market firms exhibit dividend behavior similar to U.S. firms, in the sense that dividends are explained by profitability, debt, and the market‐to‐book ratio. However, empirical dividend policy equations are structurally different, indicating different sensitivities to these variables. Additionally, emerging market firms seem to be more affected by asset mix, which seems to be due to their greater reliance on bank debt. Overall, country factors are as important in dividend policies as previous studies find them to be in capital structure decisions.     

Why do firms pay dividends? International evidence on the determinants of dividend policy

In the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Japan, the propensity to pay dividends is higher among larger, more profitable firms, and those for which retained earnings comprise a large fraction of total equity. Although there are hints of reductions in the propensity to pay dividends in most of the sample countries over the 1994–2002 period, they are driven by a failure of newly listed firms to initiate dividends when expected to do so. Dividend abandonment and the failure to initiate by existing nonpayers are economically unimportant except in Japan. Moreover, in each country, aggregate dividends have not declined and are concentrated among the largest, most profitable firms. Finally, outside of the US there is little evidence of a systematic positive relation between relative prices of dividend paying and non-paying firms and the propensity to pay dividends. Overall, these findings cast doubt on signaling, clientele, and catering explanations for dividends, but support agency cost-based lifecycle theories.     

INFORMATION ASYMMETRY,DIVIDEND STATUS,AND SEO ANNOUNCEMENT‐DAY RETURNS

We analyze the relation between the dividend‐paying status of a firm and the seasoned equity offering (SEO) announcement‐day return. Asymmetric information theory suggests there should be a positive relation: the larger the disagreement, particularly between managers and shareholders, the larger the price drop on the SEO announcement day. However, this theoretical result has not been supported by prior empirical research. In this article we reconcile the gap between the theory and extant empirical results by identifying a structural change in the way the stock market treats dividend‐paying firms. Since the mid‐1980s the difference in information asymmetry between dividend‐ and non‐dividend‐paying firms has increased sharply. As a result, before the mid‐1980s the market did not differentiate strongly between them, but subsequently the market has reacted less negatively to announcements by dividend payers.     

Payout policy and cash-flow uncertainty

The importance of cash-flow uncertainty in payout policy has received little attention in empirical studies, while survey studies such as [Lintner, J., 1956. Distribution of incomes of operations among dividends, retained earnings, and taxes. American Economic Review 46, 97–113.] and [Brav, A., Graham, J., Harvey C., Michaely, R., 2005. Payout policy in the 21st century. Journal of Financial Economics 77, 483–527.] indicate its importance. With worldwide firm-level data, we present evidence that cash-flow uncertainty is an important cross-sectional determinant of corporate payout policy. Our results show that across countries, cash-flow uncertainty, as proxied by stock return volatility, has a negative impact on the amount of dividends as well as the probability of paying dividends. The impact of cash-flow uncertainty on dividends is generally stronger than the impact of other potential determinants of payout policy—such as the earned/contributed capital mix, agency conflicts, and investment opportunities. We also find that the effect of cash-flow uncertainty on dividends is distinct from the effect of a firm's financial life-cycle stage.