Time-varying excess returns on UK government bonds: A non-linear approach

This paper provides an empirical examination of the behaviour of excess returns on UK government discount bonds in terms of risk factors such as the forward premium, the slope of the term structure, dividend yields and excess stock returns. We identify the existence of a time-varying term structure of expected excess returns. Further, the dynamics of the expected returns are characterised by regime-switching behaviour where the transition from one regime to the other is controlled by the slope of the term structure of interest rates. The first regime, which is characterised by flat or downward sloping term structures, occurs during periods of economic recession. The second regime, which is characterised by upward sloping term structures, occurs during periods of economic expansion. The main risk factors explaining expected returns are the slope of the term structure in the recessionary regime and the excess stock returns in the expansionary regime.     

Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

The Predictive Ability of Dividend and Earnings Yields for Long-Term Stock Returns

We use empirical models to examine the predictive ability of dividend and earnings yields for long‐term stock returns. Results show that dividend and earnings yields share a similar predictive power for future stock returns and growth. We find that the predictive power of dividend yields increases with the return horizon, but that yields forecast future returns and growth over a much longer horizon. Finally, dividend and earnings yields exhibit high autocorrelation and strong contemporaneous relations.     

A two-factor cointegrated commodity price model with an application to spread option pricing

In this paper, we propose an easy-to-use yet comprehensive model for a system of cointegrated commodity prices. While retaining the exponential affine structure of previous approaches, our model allows for an arbitrary number of cointegration relationships. We show that the cointegration component allows capturing well-known features of commodity prices, i.e., upward sloping (contango) and downward sloping (backwardation) term-structures, smaller volatilities for longer maturities and an upward sloping correlation term structure. The model is calibrated to futures price data of ten commodities. The results provide compelling evidence of cointegration in the data. Implications for the prices of futures and options written on common commodity spreads (e.g., spark spread and crack spread) are thoroughly investigated.     

Stock Return Volatility and Dividend Announcements

This paper is based on models presented in Kim and Verrecchia (1991a, 1991b) relating to share price volatility and the quality of announcements. It investigates the differences in informational quality between dividend cuts and dividend rises, and between interim and final dividend announcements. The results indicate that when dividends are cut, the interim announcement is perceived as being more significant than the final, whereas the reverse is true when dividends are increased. Implied standard deviations suggest that volatility is expected to peak on the day of final announcements. A peak is also expected after interim announcements of a cut in dividend, but not after announcements of an increase.     

Income Insurance and the Equilibrium Term Structure of Equity

Output, wages, and dividends feature term structures of variance ratios that are respectively flat, increasing, and decreasing. Income insurance from shareholders to workers explains these term structures. Risk‐sharing smooths wages but only concerns transitory risk and hence enhances short‐run dividend risk. As a result, actual labor‐share variation largely forecasts the risk, premium, and slope of dividend strips. A simple general equilibrium model in which labor rigidity affects dividend dynamics and the price of short‐run risk reconciles standard asset pricing facts with the term structures of the equity premium, volatility, and macroeconomic variables, which are at odds in leading models.     

Dividend Consistency: Rewards,Learning, and Expectations

The fact that many companies have a long track record of consistent dividend increases suggests that managers believe there is some benefit to establishing and maintaining such a pattern. Many companies, for example, follow a perennial policy of increasing the dividend in a particular quarter, maintaining it at the same level for the next three quarters, and then increasing it in the same quarter of the following year. But does the capital market reward companies for maintaining a consistent dividend policy? Do companies with a history of repeated dividend increases earn long‐term positive abnormal returns; and if so, how long do the returns persist? The authors find that companies earned significantly positive abnormal returns following each of the first five annual dividend increases, over and above the positive announcement‐month returns. Nevertheless, the reward decreases as the track record of dividend increases becomes longer. After the first dividend increase, companies enjoy significantly positive returns for the next two years. Companies that increase the dividend in the same quarter of the following year also enjoy significant positive returns, but returns that are smaller (and less statistically significant) than in the case of first‐time dividend increases. And as the dividend‐increase track record further lengthens, the size and statistical significance of the abnormal returns continues to shrink; and after the sixth dividend increase, the abnormal returns in the next twelve months are statistically indistinguishable from zero. In sum, although there is some support for maintaining a consistent dividend policy, the market response diminishes over time, and investors do not earn abnormal returns by buying stocks whose annual dividend has already been increased six or more times.     

Do Managerial Motives Impact Dividend Decisions in REITs?

Conflict of interest between shareholders (principal) and managers (agent) is a potential weakness of the modern corporate form. Various monitoring mechanisms—pay for performance compensation schemes, mix of cash compensation and long term compensation, the independence of the board of directors, the market for takeovers, and capital structure—have been developed to discipline management and motivate them to maximize shareholder wealth. We test the hypothesis that dividend payout levels reflect the quality of and motivation for managerial decision making and are a function of performance and monitoring effectiveness. Consistent with this hypothesis, our analyses indicate that dividend payout, and dividend yield are functions of corporate performance, board structure, CEO tenure, and CEO ownership of company shares.     

Junp-Diffusion Interest Rate Process: An Empirical Examination

We investigate a jump-diffusion process, which is a mixture of an O-U process used by Vasicek (1977) and a compound Poisson jump process, for the term structure of interest rates. We develop a methodology for estimating the jump-diffusion model and complete an empirical study in comparing the model with the Vasicek model, for the US money market interest rates. The results show that when the short-term interest rate is low, both models predict an upward sloping term structure, with the jump-diffusion model fitting the actual term structure quite well and the Vasicek model overestimating significantly. When the short-term interest rate is high, both models predict a downward sloping term structure, with the jump-diffusion model underestimating the actual term structure more significantly than the Vasicek model.     

Dilution,Dividend Commitments and Liquidity: Do Dividend Changes Reflect Information Signaling?

We develop new tests of the dividend signaling hypothesis by focusing on the role of liquidity. We allow for two different types of signaling models: one where current dividends signal firm value and the objective is to prevent current dilution, and the other where commitments to future dividends constitute the signal. We find that the results differ by the sign of the dividend surprise. Signaling models of the commitment type explain the market reaction to negative dividend surprises. Interestingly, this result is significant only for the earlier sub-period in our sample due, perhaps, to the well-documented increase in institutional investors with longer horizons. The market reaction to positive dividend surprises, on the other hand, is shown to be consistent with the over-investment and wealth transfer hypotheses. We show that the failure of the signaling model for these firms could be due to lower costs of dividend increases.     

Dividend yields and stock returns: Implications of abnormal January returns

This study examines the empirical relation between stock returns and (long-run) dividend yields. The findings show that much of the phenomenon is due to a nonlinear relation between dividend yields and returns in January. Regression coefficients on dividend yields, which some models predict should be non-zero due to differential taxation of dividends and capital gains, exhibit a significant January seasonal, even when controlling for size. This finding is significant since there are no provisions in the after-tax asset pricing models that predict the tax differential is more important in January than in other months.     

Dividend policy,signaling, and discounts on closed-end funds

We test the predictions of dividend signaling models using closed-end equity funds that adopt explicit policies committing them to pay minimum dividend yields. These policies represent deliberate attempts to reduce share price undervaluation relative to NAV. Funds that adopt minimum dividend policies experience reductions in their share price discounts, trade at smaller discounts than other funds, earn greater excess returns following policy adoption, and their managers survive longer than other managers do. The results are broadly consistent with the predictions of dividend signaling models, and suggest that high quality closed-end funds can reduce undervaluation via dividend policy.     

Dividend Surprises Inferred from Option and Stock Prices

This paper introduces a new method to measure the unexpected component of dividend announcements. While measures used previously were based on various arbitrary models of dividend expectations, our suggested method compares the reaction of stock and option prices to dividend announcements. Our measure is compared to commonly used model-based measures, to a Box-Jenkins time-series-based measure, and to a Value-Line Investor Survey-based measure of dividend surprises. The new measure is more highly correlated with the market's reaction to the announcements than are alternative measures of dividend surprises. The new measure is also shown to be insensitive to the extent to which the options used to identify unexpected dividend announcements are in- or out-of-the-money.     

基于分组固定效应模型的中国上市公司股利政策研究

基于1257家主板上市公司2004—2014年的数据,运用分组固定效应模型,考量中国上市公司的股利政策。结果表明：相比其他估计技术,分组固定效应模型的研究结果更为准确。中国上市公司在股利分配政策上具有长远规划,股利政策存在异质性且缺乏稳定性,股利平均支付比率处于较低水平。     

A Note on the Stock Market Reaction to Dividend Announcements

In this paper, we examine the stock market reaction to dividend announcements. A sample of dividend increases and decreases is partitioned by payout ratio increases and decreases. Previous research has examined the differential reaction to payout ratio increases and decreases only for dividend increases. In addition to an event study, cross-sectional regressions are estimated using the percent changes in payout ratio and dividend to explain abnormal returns. We conclude that payout ratio changes appear to be only an artifact of an earnings stream that is more variable than the dividend stream, rather than revealing any significant shifts in managerial policy.     

Do Dividend Clienteles Exist? Evidence on Dividend Preferences of Retail Investors

We study stock holdings and trading behavior of more than 60,000 households and find evidence consistent with dividend clienteles. Retail investor stock holdings indicate a preference for dividend yield that increases with age and decreases with income, consistent with age and tax clienteles, respectively. Trading patterns reinforce this evidence: Older, low‐income investors disproportionally purchase stocks before the ex‐dividend day. Furthermore, among small stocks, the ex‐day price drop decreases with age and increases with income, consistent with clientele effects. Finally, consistent with the behavioral “attention” hypothesis, we document that older and low‐income investors purchase stocks following dividend announcements.     

Dividend Policy in Switzerland

The paper examines dividend policy for a sample of Swiss companies. Several factors that determine cross-sectional variations in dividend policy – such as profitability, growth opportunities, and riskiness – are identified. Price volatility seems to stand out as the most significant factor. Looking at the relationship between dividends and earnings over time, dividend changes are more closely linked to past and current rather than future net income growth. However, they do confirm a persistent shift in the level of earnings. There is also a significant relationship between losses and dividend cuts. These findings suggest that it is the managers’ reluctance to cut dividends that gives informational content to dividend changes.     

Dividend Irrelevance and Accounting Models of Value

In accounting models of value, dividends typically appear to have a strong positive relationship with value despite theoretical reasons to expect dividend displacement. We show that this result is driven by the relationship between dividends and both core earnings and other information derived from the valuation error in the prior year. Where core earnings can be effectively modelled in a specification including other information, dividend displacement is no longer rejected. Under these circumstances dividends exhibit weak incremental predictive power for earnings and earnings expectations and hence have little impact on value. We show that valuation models are sensitive to model specification and should be used with caution when testing the value impact of firm characteristics or accounting numbers.     

Dividend Changes and Security Prices

This paper analyzes the effect of unexpected dividend changes on the values of common stock, preferred stock, and bonds. Two potential effects are identified: a wealth transfer effect and a signalling effect. Previous studies have shown that positive (negative) dividend change announcements produce positive (negative) common stock price changes. Whereas these findings have been attributed to the signalling aspect of dividends, they are also consistent with the wealth transfer hypothesis. Based on the announcement day returns of common and preferred stock and bond holders, it is demonstrated that the primary factor influencing security returns in response to dividend changes is market signalling. A wealth transfer effect is not necessarily ruled out, but if it exists it is dominated by the signalling effect.