Practitioners and some academics use potential dividends rather than actual payments to shareholders for valuing a firm’s equity. We underline the differences between the two methods and present some arguments supporting the thesis that firm valuation with potential dividends overstate the...

Practitioners and academics in valuation include changes in liquid assets (potential dividends) in the cash flows. This widespread and wrong practice is inconsistent with basic finance theory. We present economic, theoretical, and empirical arguments to support the thesis. Economic arguments...