This paper examines the role of earnings information in the determination of dividend policy. We decompose accounting earnings into permanent and transitory components and postulate that dividend policy is driven by sustainable permanent earnings. Two measures of permanent earnings are proposed....

We use empirical models to examine the predictive ability of dividend and earnings yields for long-term stock returns. Results show that dividend and earnings yields share a similar predictive power for future stock returns and growth. We find that the predictive power of dividend yields...

In this paper, we apply the neural network method to small business lending decisions. We use the neural network to classify the loan applications into the groups of acceptance or rejection, and compare the model results with the actual decisions made by loan officers. Data were collected from a...