Do dividends matter more in declining markets?

We find dividends do matter to shareholders, but more in declining markets than advancing ones. Dividend-paying stocks outperform non-dividend-paying stocks by 1 to 2% more per month in declining markets than in advancing markets. These results are economically and statistically significant and robust to many risk adjustments and across industries. In addition, we find an asymmetric response to dividend changes based on market conditions: dividend increases matter more in declining markets than advancing ones. Tests indicate that results are not due to more profitable firms and appear not to be caused either by free cash flow or signaling explanations. We also find that it is the existence of dividends, and not the dividend yield, that drives returns' asymmetric behavior relative to market movements.     

How Did the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut Affect Stock Prices?

We test the hypothesis that the 2003 dividend tax cut boosted US stock prices and thereby lowered the cost of equity capital. Using an event‐study methodology, we attempt to identify an aggregate stock market effect by comparing the behavior of US common stock prices with that of foreign equities and the equities of real estate investment trusts (REITs). We also examine the relative cross‐sectional response of prices of high‐ and low‐dividend‐paying stocks. We do not find any imprint of the dividend tax cut news on the value of the aggregate US stock market. On the other hand, high‐dividend stocks outperformed low‐dividend stocks by a few percentage points over the event windows, suggesting that the tax cut may have induced asset reallocation within equity portfolios. Finally, the positive abnormal return on nondividend paying US stocks in 2003 does not appear to be tied to tax cut news.     

Corporate payout policy in Australia and a test of the life‐cycle theory

We provide evidence on the frequency and size of payouts by Australian firms, and test whether the life‐cycle theory explains Australian corporate payout policies. Regular dividends remain the most popular mechanism for distributing cash to shareholders, despite a slight decline in the proportion of dividend payers since the relaxation of buyback regulations in 1998. Off‐market share buybacks return the largest amount of cash to shareholders. Dividend paying firms are larger, more profitable and have less growth options that nondividend paying firms. Consistent with the life‐cycle theory, we observe a highly significant relation between the decision to pay regular dividends and the proportion of shareholders’ equity that is earned rather than contributed.     

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 American Put Option Valued Analytically

An analytic solution to the American put problem is derived herein. The hedge ratio and other derivatives of the solution are presented. The formula derived implies an exact duplicating portfolio for the American put consisting of discount bonds and stock sold short. The formula is extended to consider put options on stocks paying cash dividends. A polynomial expression is developed for evaluating these formulae. Values and hedge ratios for puts on both dividend and nondividend paying stocks are calculated, tabulated, and compared with values derived by numerical integration and binomial approximation. As with European options, evaluating an analytic formula is more efficient than approximating the stock price process or the partial differential equation by binomial or finite difference methods. Finally, applications of this American put solution are discussed.     

The Effect of Fiduciary Standards on Institutions' Preference for Dividend‐Paying Stocks

Many researchers apparently believe that some institutional investors prefer dividend‐paying stocks because they are subject to the “prudent man” (PM) standard of fiduciary responsibility, under which dividend payments provide prima facie evidence that an investment is prudent. Although this was once accurate for many institutions, during the 1990s most states replaced the PM standard with the less‐stringent “prudent investor” (PI) rule, which evaluates the appropriateness of each investment in a portfolio context. Controlling for the general decline in dividend‐paying stocks, we find that institutions reduced their holdings of dividend‐paying stocks by 2% to 3% as the PI standard spread during the 1990s. Studies of asset pricing and corporate governance should no longer consider dividend payments when evaluating the actions of institutional investors.     

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.     

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.     

市场行情影响投资者的股利偏好吗?

基于2005-2017年A股上市公司的数据,研究了在不同的市场行情中,投资者对于股利政策的偏好差别。研究发现：对于现金股利而言,在上涨和下跌的市场行情中,投资者更偏好不发放现金股利的上市公司;在平稳行情中,投资者更偏好发放现金股利的上市公司。对于股票股利而言,在上涨行情中,投资者更偏好发放股票股利的上市公司;在下跌行情中,投资者更偏好不发放股票股利的上市公司;在平稳行情中,投资者对于是否发放股票股利没有显著的偏好差异。在上涨和下跌的市场行情中,超能力派现和高送转不会改变投资者的偏好;在平稳行情中,只有正常派现和正常送转才能赢得投资者的青睐,超能力派现行为无益于上市公司,高送转还会损害公司价值。     

EX‐DIVIDEND DAY PRICE BEHAVIOR OF EXCHANGE‐TRADED FUNDS

We document that for exchange‐traded funds (ETFs), the price falls on average by the dividend amounts on the ex‐dividend day, and there are significantly positive abnormal volumes. This is because trading in ETFs entails lower transaction costs and lower risk than trading in equity closed‐end funds (CEFs) and individual stocks. Similar results are also found for equity CEFs. However, regression analyses indicate that transaction costs and risk are indeed negligible for ETFs but not for equity CEFs and that risk remains important for a sample of stocks matched based on transaction costs. Overall, the results support the short‐term traders hypothesis.     

What Does the Corporate Bond Market Know?

Do related markets reflect new information simultaneously? For high‐yield bonds, a large abnormal price decline in a corporation's most liquid bond over a month is followed by an average abnormal stock price decline of ?1.42%. This effect is larger for stocks that have increased in value and for volatile stocks. It is also larger for bonds with high coupons and shorter maturities. These results support the view that high‐yield corporate bonds have an informational edge when news is negative and stock returns are noisy, and add to the growing literature on the substantial lags in price discovery between related markets.     

Connecting two markets: An equilibrium framework for shorts,longs, and stock loans

We analyze a reduced-form framework for understanding the equity loan market's impact on share prices. We show that hard-to-borrow stocks will have distinct return patterns, responding more to shocks in the supply of shares available, and to changes in the heterogeneity of investor beliefs, than other stocks. We conduct two empirical tests in which we find strong support for these equilibrium predictions. In our first test, we take advantage of a tax-driven exogenous shock to share loan supply and find that when supply is reduced around dividend record dates, prices of hard-to-borrow stocks increase 1.1% while prices of easy-to-borrow stocks are unaffected. In our second test, we find that hard-to-borrow stocks have 4.8% lower three-month returns than other stocks, with negative returns concentrated in stocks with high heterogeneity in investor beliefs. Thus, we extend the Diether, Malloy, and Scherbina (2002) result that stocks with a greater dispersion of investor beliefs have lower returns.     

Local Dividend Clienteles

We exploit demographic variation to identify the effect of dividend demand on corporate payout policy. Retail investors tend to hold local stocks and older investors prefer dividend‐paying stocks. Together, these tendencies generate geographically varying demand for dividends. Firms headquartered in areas in which seniors constitute a large fraction of the population are more likely to pay dividends, initiate dividends, and have higher dividend yields. We also provide indirect evidence as to why managers may respond to the demand for dividends from local seniors. Overall, these results are consistent with the notion that the investor base affects corporate policy choices.     

What factors determine dividend smoothing by US and EU banks?

Using a relatively large sample of European and US banks for the period 1998–2016, we investigate the determinants of bank dividend smoothing based on agency, asymmetric information and risk‐shifting theories. We show that dividend payout ratio smoothing practices were implemented on both continents before and after the crisis of 2007 and were more strongly pronounced for EU banks. Our findings mostly support agency‐based explanations of bank dividend behavior as evidenced by higher payout ratio smoothing for banks with higher (initial) dividend payouts, lower ownership concentration, public banks, and banks with lower growth opportunities and weaker investor protection. Evidence in favor of asymmetric information explanations is stronger for EU countries, where smaller (more opaque) banks appear to smooth more. In both continents, banks that rely more heavily on equity issuances are found to smooth dividend payout ratios more, suggesting that banks aim at improving access to equity markets. We also provide evidence in support of risk‐shifting, as evidenced by the persistence of dividend payout ratio smoothing in the crisis years and higher dividend smoothing for banks under greater regulatory pressure. Additional analysis using a time series partial adjustment model for dividend levels provides evidence supporting the prevalence of dividend smoothing and the suggested theoretical explanations.     

Dividend policy,creditor rights,and the agency costs of debt

We show that country-level creditor rights influence dividend policies around the world by establishing the balance of power between debt and equity claimants. Creditors demand and managers consent to a more restrictive payout policy as a substitute for weak creditor rights in an effort to minimize the firm's agency costs of debt. Using a sample of 120,507 firm-years from 52 countries, we find that both the probability and amount of dividend payouts are significantly lower in countries with poor creditor rights. A reduction in the creditor rights index from its highest value to its lowest value implies a 41% reduction in the probability of paying a dividend, and a 60% reduction in dividend payout ratios. These results are robust to numerous control variables, sample variations, model specifications, and alternative hypotheses. We also show that the agency costs of debt play a more decisive role in determining dividend policies than the previously documented agency costs of equity. Overall, our findings contribute to the growing literature arguing that creditors exert significant influence over corporate decision-making outside of bankruptcy.     

Investor Sentiment and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

We study how investor sentiment affects the cross‐section of stock returns. We predict that a wave of investor sentiment has larger effects on securities whose valuations are highly subjective and difficult to arbitrage. Consistent with this prediction, we find that when beginning‐of‐period proxies for sentiment are low, subsequent returns are relatively high for small stocks, young stocks, high volatility stocks, unprofitable stocks, non‐dividend‐paying stocks, extreme growth stocks, and distressed stocks. When sentiment is high, on the other hand, these categories of stock earn relatively low subsequent returns.     

Determinants of Investor Demand for Cross‐Listed Firms

By focusing on the decisions of investors to invest in cross‐listed stocks, this paper presents new evidence on why we observe striking differences in the percentage of trade in foreign markets for cross‐listed stocks. With a large sample of Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) stocks cross‐listed in the U.S. and Canada, we document the effect of investor recognition and risk characteristics on the distribution of trading volume. Firms that are more visible to American investors are traded more heavily in the U.S. At the same time, firms that offer diverse risk characteristics are attractive to Americans. While investors understand the benefits of international diversification, as they are attracted to stocks that are different (e.g., the stock of small firms with few assets in the U.S.), they also seek stocks that provide them with high returns.     

The Informativeness of Dividends and Associated Tax Credits

This paper investigates the informativeness of dividends and the associated tax credits with respect to earnings persistence. After confirming that dividend‐paying firms have more persistent earnings than non‐dividend‐paying firms, we show that the taxation status of the dividend is also important. Firms that pay dividends with a full tax credit attached have significantly more persistent earnings than firms that pay dividends which carry no associated tax credit. Consistent with higher levels of tax credits identifying more mature firms, those paying dividends with full tax credits have significantly less persistent losses than firms that pay dividends with only partial tax credits. Further, market pricing tests confirm that the incremental information in dividends and tax credits contributes to reductions in market mispricing of the persistence of earnings and earnings components. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications and controlling for dividend size and firm age.     

Local Return Factors and Turnover in Emerging Stock Markets

The factors that drive cross-sectional differences in expected stock returns in emerging equity markets are qualitatively similar to those that have been documented for developed markets. Emerging market stocks exhibit momentum, small stocks outperform large stocks, and value stocks outperform growth stocks. There is no evidence that high beta stocks outperform low beta stocks. A Bayesian analysis of the return premiums shows that the combined evidence of developed and emerging markets strongly favors the hypothesis that similar return factors are present in markets around the world. Finally, there exists a strong cross-sectional correlation between the return factors and share turnover.     

Do Co‐Opted Directors Influence Dividend Policy?

We explore how co‐opted directors affect dividend policy. Co‐opted directors are those appointed after the incumbent chief executive officer (CEO) assumes office. Our results show that co‐opted directors lead to a weaker propensity to pay dividends and, for dividend‐paying firms, significantly lower dividend payouts. We also show that board co‐option has more explanatory power for dividend policy than does the traditional measure of board effectiveness, that is, board independence. Exploiting the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act as a natural experiment, we show that the effect of board co‐option on dividend policy is more likely causal, rather than merely an association.