Do Firms in Emerging Markets Follow Different Dividend Policies From U.S. Firms?

We find that emerging market firms exhibit similar dividend behavior to U.S. firms in the sense that dividends are explained by profitability, debt, and the market to book ratio. However, empirical dividend policy equations are structurally different, indicating different sensitivities to these variables.Additionally, emerging market firms seem to be more affected by asset mix, which seems to be due to their greater reliance on bank debt. Overall, country factors are as important in dividend policies as previous studies have found them to be in capital structure decisions