Measuring the Effective Tax Burden in the Real World*

This paper argues that forward‐looking indices of the effective tax burden on income from capital – namely, effective marginal and average tax rates – are negatively biased because traditional models overlook dividend constraints associated with financial tax incentives, such as accelerated depreciation. The paper presents measures of the two indices adjusted to remove the bias and compares the new indices with the traditional ones. Numerical simulations carried out to quantify the magnitude of the bias for France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK give evidence of sizeable distortions in the unadjusted indices and, in turn, suggest significant mismeasurement in the current assessment of the effective tax burden.     

Mispricing and the cross-section of stock returns

This paper employs the Campbell-Shiller (Rev Financ Stud 1:195–228, 1988) VAR model to derive a model-based mispricing measure that captures investor overreaction to growth. Using this mispricing measure, we find that stocks with low levels of mispricing outperform otherwise similar stocks. The long–short mispricing strategy generates statistically and economically significant returns over the sample period of July 1981 to June 2006. Moreover, this mispricing strategy outperforms the contrarian strategy using various accounting-fundamental-to-price ratios. Our results cast doubt on the risk story in explaining the abnormal returns of the mispricing strategy. Rather, our evidence suggests that asset prices reflect both covariance risk and mispricing.

负债与现金股利共存于激励契约的模型推演

信息传递理论和代理成本理论认为,在激励契约中,负债和现金股利可以相互替代,但是现实中负债与现金股利却共存于激励契约。文章通过模型推演,证明债务支付承诺的“刚性”在控制道德风险方面存在优势,但在传递信息方面存在不足。而现金股利支付承诺则具有较大“弹性”,该弹性能提高信息传递能力,以改善控制逆向选择(隐藏信息)和道德风险(隐藏行动)的效率,从而使负债与现金股利具有互补性,为负债与现金股利共存于公司的激励契约提供了合理的解释。     

The value of dividends: Evidence from cum-dividend trading in the ex-dividend period

What is the market value of a dollar of fully franked dividends? We address this question by exploiting a new phenomenon in the Australian capital market—the trading of shares cum-dividend during the ex-dividend period. This allows a relatively clean measurement of the combined value of dividends and the associated tax effects net of transactions costs. Consistent with the theoretical model that we develop, the evidence from this sample is that one dollar of fully franked dividends, after tax effects and transaction costs, is worth significantly more than one dollar. We also show that, in contrast to our measure, the traditional measure of the ex-dividend price drop-off, based on close to close prices, has a lower average value and exhibits substantially more cross sectional variation.     

Book Reivew Section

Books reviewed:
Alan Davies, Myles McGregor-Lowndes and Robert Craig The Internet for Accountants
Wayne Lonergan The Valuation of Businesses, Shares and Other Equity , 3rd Edition
Frank K. Reilly and Keith C. Brown Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management , 5th Edition     

Prior Payment Status and the Likelihood to Pay Dividends: International Evidence

By using the signaling model and the life‐cycle theory, I examine the importance of prior payment status in determining the likelihood to pay dividends. I categorize firms into those that paid dividends previously and those that did not. My results show that strong dividend stickiness exists and the determinants to pay differ significantly for the two groups of firms. High growth and low insider holdings make prior payers more likely to pay but prior nonpayers less likely to pay. Furthermore, prior payers are more sensitive to profitability and earned/contributed equity mix, while prior nonpayers are more sensitive to risk and dividend premiums. Finally, taking the prior payment status into account eliminates the problem of overestimating the portion of payers put forth by previous studies.     

论股利政策理论行为学研究视角的演进路径

标准金融学视角下的＂股利之谜＂在学界一直存在不同的实证结论,依旧悬而未决,然而行为金融学对认知和偏好的关注为股利政策的理论研究开辟了新视角,在市场不完善的情况下迎合理论、预期理论、后悔厌恶、心理账户、自我控制等对股利政策进行了一定的解释,但仍需不断系统化并用于解释中国上市公司的股利行为。     

Capital structure： The Italian market perspective

This article first investigates the determinants of＂capital structure＂ and the extent to which financial structure policy contributes to the creation of shareholder value in Italian companies through a survey of 76 CFOs of Italian listed non-financial companies, and revealed that the key driver is the quest for financial flexibility, necessary to combine effectively capital structure policy with the other two levers of value creation, investment policy and payout policy. These three value creation drivers are autonomous, but this empirical study reveals a clear hierarchy that links liability policy （capital structure and payout） to asset policy （investments） leading companies to make sub-optimal financial structure decisions that may not minimize the weighted average cost of capital, though ensuring the financial flexibility necessary to activate their principal lever of value creation, investment policy, effectively and without excessive constraints. A major finding in a subsequent benchmarking exercise is that Italian ＂family capitalism＂ affects corporate governance and therefore capital structure decisions. This finding may not be restricted to the Italian market, but could apply to all countries in which ownership structures are centered on very few shareholders with weak financial market control and where banks often play a crucial role in the governance of companies.     

中央转移支付与新疆经济增长的实证分析

中央转移支付无论是总量还是在新疆经济中所占的比重近几年来都有明显的加速增长势头，尤其是西部大开发政策实施以后，中央转移支付的增长速度已然超过了新疆经济的发展速度。新疆经济的发展离不开外部的帮助、国家的扶植和自身的努力，外商直接投资可以看做外部的帮助，转移支付是国家扶植地方的重要手段，地方财政支出代表自身努力。基于此，结合转移支付、财政支出以及外商直接投资，利用回归和灰色关联的分析方法，综合分析了分税制改革后它们对新疆经济的影响，研究发现它们对新疆经济都具有促进作用。回归后发现转移支付和财政支出对新疆经济增长的贡献比较大，而外商直接投资的作用并没有充分显现。运用灰色关联研究后发现非生产性财政支出与新疆经济关联性最大，其次是生产性财政支出和转移支付，最后是外商直接投资。通过了解这种影响模式，为引导今后新疆经济发展提供一种思路。     

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.