Dividend growth and return predictability: A long-run re-examination of conventional wisdom

We re-examine dividend growth and return predictability evidence using 165 years of data from the Brussels Stock Exchange. The conventional wisdom holds that time-varying dividend yield is predominately explained by changes in expected returns and that expected dividend growth is only weakly forecastable. However, we find robust dividend growth predictability evidence in every time period. A lack of dividend smoothing is the most important reason for the disconnect with previous evidence. Furthermore, we find return predictability in the post-World War II period when we adjust the dividend yields for changing index composition, business cycle variation and structural breaks. This is explained by a simultaneous increase in equity duration, induced by an increasing importance of growth stocks.     

CONSIDERING DIVIDEND STABILITY IN THE RELATION BETWEEN DIVIDEND YIELDS AND STOCK RETURNS

Previous studies show that firms with long records of paying stable dividends are unique. However, research on the relation between dividend yields and stock returns focuses on shorter-term dividend yield measures without considering long-term dividend stability. This article shows that high-yield stocks are not in fact homogeneous, but that stocks with high yields and stable dividends behave differently from stocks with only a high yield. These differences persist even after controlling for firm size, the January effect, and systematic risk, suggesting distinctive risk characteristics for stocks with both high yields and stable dividends.     

Ex-Dividend Returns and the Tax Reform Act of 1986

As previously recognized, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced observed ex-day returns to stocks that do not attract dividend capture trading. However, by decreasing the top corporate tax rate, and decreasing the corporate dividend income deduction, the Act also reduced the return to dividend capture by U.S. corporations. The ex-day returns for stocks that had previously attracted corporate dividend capture should therefore increase. This prediction is consistent with evidence that ex-day returns increased after the Act was implemented, among low-transaction cost, high-dividend yield stocks and among low-risk, high-dividend yield stocks.     

The effects of dividend yield and dividend policy on common stock prices and returns

This paper suggests that it is not possible to demonstrate, using the best available empirical methods, that the expected returns on high yield common stocks differ from the expected returns on low yield common stocks either before or after taxes. A taxable investor who concentrates his portfolio in low yield securities cannot tell from the data whether he is increasing or decreasing his expected after-tax return by so doing. A tax exempt investor who concentrates his portfolio in high yield securities cannot tell from the data whether he is increasing or decreasing his expected return. We argue that the best method for testing the effects of dividend policy on stock prices is to test the effects of dividend yield on stock returns. Thus the fact that we cannot tell, using the best available methods, what effects dividend yield has on stock returns implies that we cannot tell what effect, if any, a change in dividend policy will have on a corporation's stock price.     

The ex-dividend day stock price behavior in the Chinese stock market

This paper analyzes the ex-dividend day stock price behavior in the Chinese stock market. This market allows to examine the impact of tax effects while keeping any microstructure factors constant. The findings from non-taxable stocks show that their price, on the ex-dividend day, falls by an amount that is not statistically different from the dividend. For the taxable sample, stock prices of small dividend yield stocks fall proportionally to the dividend paid. For the large dividend yield stocks, the price adjustment depends on the effective tax rate on dividend income. The overall findings are consistent with the tax hypothesis.     

The smallest firm effect: An international study

Using a carefully screened and filtered international database with a wide coverage across countries and size classes, this paper identifies and documents a post-1980s size effect which is persistent, not picked up by a Fama–French-style SMB, and largely due to the smallest-decile stocks. We test for potential explanations (such as market risk, infrequent trading, financial distress risk, missing book values, momentum, liquidity risk, changing business conditions, January effect, exchange risk, time-varying risk loadings and dividend yield effects), but none can quite explain the international size effect, whether separately or jointly. Fully identifying the missing risk factor is beyond the scope of this paper but we do find that dividend yield shows up as a significant characteristic in the cross-section of risk-adjusted returns, even after controlling for time-varying risk loadings linearly related to dividend yield. When we construct two ad-hoc risk factors that jointly capture the documented size effect, and then correlate these factors with characteristics-based portfolios, we likewise find that especially dividend yield seems to play an important role in the missing risk factor. More generally, this paper revives the debate on the small-firm effect and, we hope, will stimulate further research on a class of stocks that are too interesting to ignore.     

REITs,Decimalization, and Ex-dividend Stock Prices

The ex-dividend pricing of real estate investment trust (REIT) stocks under fractional and decimal pricing regimes is investigated. For REITs, with the move from discrete to decimal pricing, the price drop on the ex-dividend day approaches the dividend amount, the ex-date abnormal return decreases, the spread-to-dividend ratio declines, abnormal trading volume increases, and the potential erroneous appearance of a tax-clientele effect is diminished. Discreteness and other transaction costs are reduced with decimalization implying that part of the persistence in the appearance of the tax-clientele effect when modeling ex-dividend stock pricing might be generated by the interaction between transaction costs, dividend amount, and yield.      

DO DIVIDEND FLOWS AFFECT STOCK RETURNS?

We examine price impacts from dividend flows. Event‐study estimates show that stocks experience abnormal returns on the dividend distribution day. Results also show a spillover effect to non‐dividend‐paying stocks that are likely to be part of the same benchmark portfolio as the dividend‐paying stocks. Regression results indicate that the effect is dependent on the ownership share by professional investors. The temporary nature of the effect on returns is in line with the literature's demand‐driven price pressure hypothesis.     

Direct evidence of dividend tax clienteles

The paper is the first to evaluate the dividend tax clientele hypothesis using a data set of all domestic stock portfolios in the market. We find that investment funds that face a higher effective tax rate on dividend income than on capital gains tilt their portfolios away from dividend-paying stocks. These investors consequently earn a dividend yield that is about 35 basis points lower than that of investors who are tax neutral between dividends and capital gains (pension funds, unit-linked insurance, life insurance). Consistent with tax rules and charter provisions, we also find that private corporations prefer growth stocks, that foundations exhibit strong dividend preferences, and that partnerships rarely hold stocks portfolios.     

中国股债市场长期动态相关性的影响因素研究——基于宏观不确定性和协动性视角

本文借鉴现代宏观经济学中的无套利仿射模型,基于"定价核"的定价方式,将股票市场和债券市场收益率之间的相关系数分解为其主要驱动因素--通货膨胀、真实利率和股息率的不确定性,以及三者之间的协方差。在实证部分,采用DCC-MGARCH模型计算股票市场和债券市场收益率的动态相关系数,验证中国股债相关性的时变规则;进而通过回归分析探究所选取的解释变量对中国股债相关性的贡献。结果表明,通货膨胀和股息率的不确定性以及真实利率与通货膨胀和股息率各自之间的协动性是影响这种相关性的主要因素;通胀冲击、真实利率和股息率可以解释这种相关性与长期动态的暂时背离。其中,通货膨胀和股息率的不确定性对股债相关性的影响与其他欧美主要经济体有着不同的表现,反映了中国市场的特殊性;此外,相较于中国经济市场的平稳时期,股市动荡期间各经济因素的影响会发生改变,且模型解释力会降低。     

The Quasi-split Effect, Active Insiders and the Italian Market Reaction to Equity Rights Issues

The positive market reaction at the announcement of most European rights issues can be explained by two major factors which distinguish them from a US public offering: active insiders, and a quasi-split effect which signals a large increase in the dividend yield. An analysis of 428 Italian rights offerings and an event study involving 82 observations in the 1980–94 period show that Italian insiders are completely 'active', and almost 85 % of the equity rights issues result in a dividend yield increase, which corresponds to the quasi-split effect in approximately 40 % of the issues. The dividend yield rises, on average, by a significant +61 % after a combined rights offering and by a significantly lower +20 % following a fully-paid rights issue. The market reaction to the announcement is significantly positive for combined rights offerings (+ 2.77 %) and positive, but not significant, for the whole sample (+ 0.79 %). The dividend increase signalled by the quasi-split effect explains almost 30 % of the abnormal returns' cross-sectional variation and it is the only significant explanatory variable.     

Do Tax Law Changes Influence Ex-Dividend Stock Price Behavior? Evidence from 1926 to 2005

We test the Elton and Gruber model of ex-dividend stock pricing over a period spanning all US tax law changes since 1926. Our results indicate that price drop ratios (ΔP/D) and ex-day returns are related to dividend and capital gains tax rates in the theorized manner. Consistent with tax clienteles, we also find that ex-day price movements of higher dividend yield stocks are driven more by corporate tax rates, while lower yield stocks are more influenced by personal rates. Finally, we demonstrate that the positive relationship between ΔP/D and the dividend yield becomes stronger as the tax differential | t_d− t_cg | widens.     

Determinants of Corporate Dividend Capture

This paper uses ex-dividend day returns to show that corporate dividend capture in utility stocks depends upon transaction costs, the three month treasury bill rate, unsystematic risk and dividend yield. The paper finds that the data do not support the same determinants for dividend capture in non-utility stocks. Tests on data from before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986 do not show conclusively that the Tax Reform Act reduced the prevalence of dividend capture.     

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.     

The effect of personal taxes and dividends on capital asset prices: Theory and empirical evidence

This paper derives an after tax version of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. The model accounts for a progressive tax scheme and for wealth and income related constraints on borrowing. The equilibrium relationship indicates that before-tax expected rates of return are linearly related to systematic risk and to dividend yield. The sample estimates of the variances of observed betas are used to arrive at maximum likelihood estimators of the coefficients. The results indicate that, unlike prior studies, there is a strong positive relationship between dividend yield and expected return for NYSE stocks. Evidence is also presented for a clientele effect.     

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 Size, Yield, Clienteles and REITs

Dividend size and dividend yield are typically highly correlated which substantially hinders the empirical assessment of ex-dividend stock pricing. The ability to disentangle the joint effect of dividend yield and dividend size on ex-dividend stock prices is thus of central importance in assessing existing theories. Fortunately, the REIT asset class provides data having a low correlation between dividend size and dividend yield allowing for a cleaner assessment of the extant theories. Evidence from the present study indicates that results that are typically interpreted as confirmatory of the tax-induced clientele effect may be spurious. Instead, transaction costs and limit order adjustments are likely the determinants of the observed relationships between the change in price to dividend ratio, dividend yield, and dividend size.     

Payout Policy Tax Clienteles,Ex‐dividend Day Stock Prices and Trading Behavior in Germany: The Case of the 2001 Tax Reform

This paper examines the impact of the German 2001 tax reform, where Germany switched from a full imputation system to a classical system. Theory suggests that both price drop ratios and trading volume decrease following the reform. We document a significant reduction in the valuation of net dividends–in particular for high dividend yield stocks–and weakening payout policy tax clienteles. Ex‐dividend day returns are likely to be driven by short‐term traders. Though the reform removed incentives for cross‐border dividend stripping and reduced tax heterogeneity among investors, we show that the high trading volume around ex‐dividend days persists.     

Stock and bond joint pricing,consumption surplus,and inflation news

In this paper, Bekaert et al.’s (2010) model is modified by allowing consumption growth to depend on dividend yield rather than dividend growth. With a simplified inflation dynamic, the general equilibrium model is characterized by a system of linear and affine stochastic equations. From these equations, a closed-form solution jointly pricing equity and bonds is derived. The generalized method of moments is used to demonstrate that our model’s calibrated moments broadly match the first and second moments of stocks, bonds, and other macroeconomic variables in the US. Our estimated equity premium is 6.0%, which closely matches its actual value of 5.6%. The predicted risk aversion is countercyclical. Moreover, an out-of-sample test indicates the significant improvement of predictive power on the price–dividend ratio over Campbell and Cochrane’s (1999) model. Our model can further capture the dramatic increase in the price–dividend ratio after the 1990s.     

THE MARKET REACTION TO THE 1986 TAX OVERHAUL: A STUDY OF THE CAPITAL GAIN TAX CHANGE

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) eliminated the favorable tax treatment on long-term capital gains in the US. Using a standard event study… CONTENTS AND ABSTRACTS 111 methodology, this paper examines daily stock return reactions to the tax overhaul. The results show that high dividend yield stocks earned a significant positive abnormal return and low yield stocks a significant negative return during the legislation period. This finding is consistent with the notion that the TRA made the market valuation of stocks shift in favor of high yield stocks.