Dividends,earnings, and predictability

We show that the dividend yield and earnings yield jointly are strong predictors of dividend growth. We motivate the joint specification with a theoretical model and show how omitting the earnings yield biases the dividend yield coefficient towards zero, explaining why the dividend yield by itself is a poor predictor of dividend growth. Our empirical results are robust in pre- and post-war U.S. data, in recessions and expansions, in international data, and when controlling for additional predictors.     

Shareholder Protection,Ownership, and Dividends: Russian Evidence

This article investigates the relation between corporate governance mechanisms and dividend policy in Russian firms. Using a sample of Russian listed firms over the period 1998–2003, we estimate models for dividend pay probability and payout size. We find that there has been a significant increase in dividend payout levels which coincide with improvements in legal shareholder protection. State controlled firms are more frequent dividend payers as compared to other majority owned firms. We also find that dual share firms, in which corporate charters protect minority interests, have a higher dividend pay probability; while firms reporting according to US GAAP, which may be less likely to manipulate earnings, have a lower dividend payout.     

Dividends,Dilution, and Taxes: A Signalling Equilibrium

A signalling equilibrium with taxable dividends is identified. In this equilibrium, corporate insiders with more valuable private information optimally distribute larger dividends and receive higher prices for their stock whenever the demand for cash by both their firm and its current stockholders exceeds its internal supply of cash. In equilibrium, many firms distribute dividends and simultaneously issue new stock, while other firms pay no dividends. Because dividends reveal all private information not conveyed by corporate audits, current stockholders capture in equilibrium all economic rents net of dissipative signalling costs. Both the announcement effect and the relationship between dividends and cum-dividend market values are derived explicitly.     

Dividends,Taxes, and Signaling: Evidence from Germany

The higher taxation of dividends in the United States gave rise to theories that explain why companies pay dividends. Tax-based signaling models propose that the higher tax on dividends is a necessary condition to make them informative about companies' values. In Germany, where dividends are not tax-disadvantaged and in fact are taxed lower for most investor classes, these models predict that dividends are not informative. However, we find that the stock price reaction to dividend news in Germany is similar to that found in the United States. This suggests other reasons, beyond taxation, that make dividends informative.     

Dividends, Distortion and Double Taxation

It is often claimed the double taxation inherent in the classical system of corporate taxation imposes an extra tax burden on corporate income and causes undesirable distortions in economic behaviour. In anticipation of suggestions for reform, consequent upon a major inquiry into the Australian financial system, this paper questions several of the traditional criticisms of the classical tax system and suggests that the supposed extra tax burden may not exist.     

Disappearing Dividends, Catering, and Risk

Fama and French (2001a) show that the propensity to pay dividendsdeclines significantly between 1978 and 1999. We examine this"disappearing dividends" puzzle through the lens of risk andreport two main findings: (i) Risk is a significant determinantof the propensity to pay dividends, and it explains roughly40% of disappearing dividends; (ii) We find little support forthe view that disappearing dividends reflects firms' cateringto transient fads for dividends. Absent risk controls, proxiesfor fads matter, but these proxies are insignificant once wecontrol for risk. Our results are robust to an extensive batteryof robustness tests that vary samples, time periods, proxiesfor fads, the types of empirical tests, and the nature of payoutdecisions made by firms.     

Stock Splits and Stock Dividends: Why,Who, and When

This study investigates empirically why firms split their stock or distribute stock dividends and why the market reacts favorably to these distributions. The findings suggest that stock splits are mainly aimed at restoring stock prices to a “normal range.” Some support can also be found for the oft-mentioned signalling motive of stock splits. Stock dividends are altogether different from stock splits, and they appear to be a decreasing phenomenon. The clue to stock dividend distributions may lie in their perceived substitution for relatively low cash dividends.     

Warrant Exercise,Dividends, and Reinvestment Policy

In this paper, we examine sequential exercise strategies by warrantholders and the gain from hoarding warrants. We analyze several obstacles to acquiring large blocks in order to exploit sequential strategies. First, we identify several reinvestment policies for which sequential exercise is not advantageous, thereby eliminating the gain from hoarding. However, sequential exercise strategies may be advantageous for monopoly or oligopoly warrantholders, even absent dividends, because using exercise proceeds to repurchase stock or to expand the firm's scale increases the riskiness of an equity share. Second, oligopoly warrantholders can receive a smaller warrant value than perfectly competitive warrantholders, suggesting a potential cost to unsuccessful hoarding.     

Stock Prices,Earnings, and Expected Dividends

Long historical averages of real earnings help forecast present values of future real dividends. With aggregate U.S. stock market data (1871–1986), a vector-autoregressive forecast of the present value of future dividends is, for each year, roughly a weighted average of moving-average earnings and current real price, with between two thirds and three fourths of the weight on the earnings measure. We develop the implications of this for the present-value model of stock prices and for recent results that long-horizon stock returns are highly forecastable.     

Stock Dividends,Stock Splits,and Signaling

This paper provides evidence that firms signal their private information about future earnings by their choice of split factor. Split factors are increasing in earnings forecast errors, after controlling for differences in pre-split price and firm size. Furthermore, price changes at stock dividend and split announcements are significantly correlated with split factors, holding other factors constant, and with earnings forecast errors. These correlations suggest that management's choice of split factor signals private information about future earnings and that investors revise their beliefs about firm value accordingly. The analysis also suggests, however, that announcement returns are significantly correlated with split factors after controlling for earnings forecast errors. This suggests that earnings forecast errors measure management's private information about future earnings with error, that split factors signal other valuation-relevant attributes, or that a signaling explanation is incomplete.     

Dividends,Corporate Monitors and Agency Costs

We report new evidence on the hypothesis that dividends reduce agency costs. Consistent with dividends as a mechanism to reduce agency costs, we find that, on average, firms with a majority of strict outside directors on their boards experience significantly lower mean abnormal returns around the announcements of sizeable dividend increases. Our results are robust to multivariate controls for firm size, leverage, ownership, growth options, and change in dividend yield. However, we find no evidence that dividend increases reduce agency costs as measured by poison pills or outside blockholdings.     

Dividends and taxes

We present sufficient conditions for taxable investors to be indifferent to dividends despite tax differentials in favor of capital gains (Strong Invariance Proposition). The conditions include two ‘seemingly unrelated’ provisions of the Internal Revenue Code: (1) the limitation of interest deductions to investment income received and (2) the tax-free accumulation of wealth at the before-tax interest rate on investments in life insurance. Although we use insurance for simplicity in the proof, many tax-equivalent investment vehicles now exist, notably pension funds. Our analysis suggests that the personal income tax is approaching a consumption tax with further drift likely.     

Dividends and Losses

An annual loss is essentially a necessary condition for dividend reductions in firms with established earnings and dividend records: 50.9% of 167 NYSE firms with losses during 1980–1985 reduced dividends, versus 1.0% of 440 firms without losses. As hypothesized by Miller and Modigliani, dividend reductions depend on whether earnings include unusual items that are likely to temporarily depress income. Dividend reductions are more likely given greater current losses, less negative unusual items, and more persistent earnings difficulties. Dividend policy has information content in that knowledge that a firm has reduced dividends improves the ability of current earnings to predict future earnings.     

Dividends, Share Repurchases, and the Substitution Hypothesis

We show that repurchases have not only became an important form of payout for U.S. corporations, but also that firms finance their share repurchases with funds that otherwise would have been used to increase dividends. We find that young firms have a higher propensity to pay cash through repurchases than they did in the past and that repurchases have become the preferred form of initiating a cash payout. Although large, established firms have generally not cut their dividends, they also show a higher propensity to pay out cash through repurchases. These findings indicate that firms have gradually substituted repurchases for dividends. Our results also suggest that before 1983, regulatory constraints inhibited firms from aggressively repurchasing shares.     

Moral Hazard,Dividends, and Risk in Banks

In non‐financial firms, higher risk taking results in lower dividend payout ratios. In banking, public guarantees may result in a positive relationship between dividend payout ratios and risk taking. I investigate the interplay between dividend payout ratios and bank risk‐taking allowing for the effect of charter values and capital adequacy regulation. I find a positive relationship between bank risk‐taking and dividend payout ratios. Proximity to the required capital ratio and a high charter value reduce the impact of bank risk‐taking on the dividend payout ratio. My results are robust to different proxies for the dividend payout ratio and bank risk‐taking.     

Signaling, Free Cash Flow and Nonmonotonic Dividends

Many argue that dividends signal future earnings or dispose of excess cash. Empirical support is inconclusive, potentially because no model combines both rationales. This paper does. Higher quality firms pay dividends to eliminate the free cash-flow problem, while firms that outsiders perceive as lower quality pay dividends to signal future earnings and reduce the free cash-flow problem. In equilibrium, dividends are nonmonotonic with respect to the signal observed by outsiders; the highest quality firms pay smaller dividends than lower perceived quality firms. The model reconciles the existing literature and generates new empirical predictions that are tested and supported.     

Dividends, Values and Agency Costs in REITs

This study examines the market value of REIT dividends conditional on transparency of operating structure and effectiveness of boards. Results suggest that total, mandatory and discretionary dividends are valued by the market. Consistent with agency cost theory, results provide some evidence that discretionary dividends paid by REITs with greater principal-agent conflicts have greater market value. Specific results suggest an increased value of excess dividends paid by firms with more complex organizational structures (UPREITs) and, to some degree, less independent boards. This evidence implies the equity market recognizes REITs’ substitution of discretionary dividends for stronger governance.     

货币政策、融资约束与现金股利

股利分配不仅是上市公司财务管理的核心内容,也是投资者获取回报的重要方式。以中国1999-2012年沪、深A股盈利上市公司为样本,本文检验了宏观货币政策和微观融资约束对公司现金股利发放的影响。研究发现:(1)紧缩的货币政策抑制了公司现金股利的发放;(2)公司面临的融资约束进一步强化了紧缩货币政策对现金股利的抑制作用;(3)银企关联有助于缓解紧缩货币政策对现金股利的抑制作用。进一步研究发现:出于再融资考虑,半强制分红政策的实施使得上市公司在货币政策紧缩期反而发放了更多的现金股利,体现出一定的政策导向作用。本文的发现不仅丰富了现金股利影响因素和货币政策经济后果的相关研究,同时也为我国股利监管政策的完善提供了一定启发。     

Dividends and price momentum

Stock market evidence shows that momentum profits are lower among dividend-paying firms than their non-paying counterparts due to differences in losers’ returns. Additionally, dividend maintenance is associated with higher returns for losers but not for winners. Finally, buying winners that increased their dividends and shorting losers that decreased their dividends enhances momentum profits. Consistent with the evidence, the behavioral models suggest that investors underreact to the losers’ positive dividend-maintaining news, reducing their return momentum and shrinking the payers’ momentum profit. Also, underreaction to positive news from winners’ dividend-increasing announcements as well as to negative news from losers’ dividend-decreasing announcements explains the higher momentum profits for strategies based on these stocks. The results do not appear consistent with risk-based explanations.