Dividend policies in Australia and Japan

This paper presents the findings of a comparative study of dividend policies in Australia and Japan. It examines panel data from the constituent stocks of the ASX 200 Index of the Australian stock market and the Nikkei 225 Index of the Japanese stock market. The evidence that Australia, with an imputation tax system which favors dividends over capital gains, has a significantly higher dividend payout than Japan lends support to the influence of environment on dividend policy. Dividend policies in Australia and Japan are affected by different financial factors. Fixed effects regression models indicate that dividend policies are affected positively by size in Australia and liquidity in Japan, and negatively by risk in Japan only. An industry effect is found to be significant in both countries.