Réflexions sur la politique optimale de dividendes en présence de coûts d'information

One of the central questions in corporate finance is whether investors prefer to receive their payouts from corporations in the form of cash dividends or as capital gains. We know that most firms pay dividends, even though doing so is costly in various ways. And we know that the market reaction to dividend changes implies that dividends are good, and more is better. It is not surprising, then, that many theories assume or imply that dividends provide information to the market. Despite extensive theoretical and empirical research in dividend policy, we do not have a conclusive answer to the questions of how investors value cash dividends and how managers look for an optimal dividend policy. In this paper, we present a survey of the literature regarding the basic results and issues in the optimal dividend policy. We also generalise the model of Merton and March (1987) to account for the effects of information costs.