This paper examines the performance of newly public firms and compares those firms that initiated dividends with those that did not. Earnings increases following the dividend initiation and earnings surprises for initiating firms are more favorable than those for noninitiating firms....

This paper examines empirically whether the dividend initiation decisions of a sample of newly-public firms are best explained by the predictions of the Miller and Rock (1985) cash flow signalling model, or by the competing agency cost models presented by Easterbrook (1984), Jensen (1986), and...