Policymakers frequently propose to use capital tax reform to stimulate investment and increase labor earnings. This paper tests for such real impacts of the 2003 dividend tax cut—one of the largest reforms ever to a U.S. capital tax rate—using a quasi-experimental design and a large sample...

This paper tests whether firms altered their dividend and share repurchase policies in response to the 2003 reductions in shareholder tax rates. We predict that firms substituted dividends for repurchases, because the reduction in dividend tax rates exceeded the reduction in the capital gains...

How do dividend taxes affect firm behavior and what are their distributional and efficiency effects? To answer these questions, the first problem is coming up with an explanation for why firms pay dividends, in spite of their tax penalty. This paper surveys three different models for why firms...

U.S. corporations hold significant amounts of cash on their balance sheets, and these cash holdings have been justified in the existing empirical literature by transaction costs and precautionary motives. An additional explanation, considered in this study, is that U.S. multinational firms hold...

We analyze a model of optimal capital structure and liquidity choice based on a dynamic tradeoff theory for financially constrained firms. In addition to the classical tradeoff between the expected tax advantages of debt and bankruptcy costs, we introduce a cost of external financing for the...

We analyze the effects of changes in dividend tax policy using a life-cycle model of the firm, in which new firms first access equity markets, then grow internally, and finally pay dividends when they have reached steady state. In accordance with the traditional view of dividend taxation, new...

In spite of mounting losses banks continued to pay dividends during the crisis. We present a model that addresses this behavior. By paying out dividends, a bank transfers value to its shareholders away from creditors, among whom are other banks. This way, one bank's dividend payout policy...

The headline numbers appear to show that even as banks and financial intermediaries suffered large credit losses in the financial crisis of 2007-09, they raised substantial amounts of new capital, both from private investors and through government-funded capital injections. However, on closer...

We survey the theory and evidence of behavioral corporate finance, which generally takes one of two approaches. The market timing and catering approach views managerial financing and investment decisions as rational managerial responses to securities mispricing. The managerial biases approach...

This paper jointly evaluates firm-level changes in investor composition and shareholder distributions following a 2003 reduction in the dividend and capital gains tax rates for individuals. We find that directors and officers, but not other individual investors, rebalanced their portfolios to...