Catering approach to the dividend payment policy on the Warsaw Stock Exchange

Dividend payment policy is a significant issue of neoclassical theories of finance. One of the concepts which poses a challenge to the neoclassical approach to dividend payment policy is behavioural finance, including a catering theory of dividends. The aim of the article is to examine whether and to what extent the catering theory of dividends is reflected in the behaviour of shareholders and managers on the WSE. The opportunity to accomplish the aim of this paper was conditioned by the empirical verification of research hypothesis stipulating that the number of dividend payers increases if the dividend payers are priced by the capital market higher that the nonpayers. The empirical verification of hypothesis was conducted basing on the equaland value-weighted dividend premium as well as dividend payment ratios. Moreover, descriptive statistics, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, linear regression and coefficient of determination were used. The study was carried out on the basis of companies operating in the electromechanical industry sector that were listed on the WSE in the period between 1999-2013. The figures were taken from the Stock Exchange Yearbooks, Notoria Serwis database and GPWInfostrefa platform. The preliminary results of empirical research in the range of the catering theory of dividends allow to draw a conclusion that this theory may be useful in explaining the dividend policy conducted by electromechanical industry companies listed on the WSE.