This paper offers a novel explanation for why some firms prefer to pay dividends rather than repurchase shares. It is well-known that insitutional investors are relatively less taxed than individual investors, and that this induces "dividend clientele" effects. We argue that these clientele...

We use genetic algorithm to learn trading rules for the S&P 500 index using daily prices from 1928 to 1995. After transaction costs, the rules do not earn consistent excess returns over a simple buy-and-hold test periods.