Over the past two decades, by some measures, paying dividends has become a less favorable choice for firms. At the same time, the business environment in which firms operate has also become more competitive. This raises an interesting question: does a firm's market power in its product market...

We document changes in aggregate dividend payments by Canadian firms over the period 1989-2021, which covers both the “disappearing” (1989-2002) and the reappearing periods (2003-2021) previously noted for U.S firms. In Canada, the changes are mainly driven by the changes in the number of...

In a “perfect” market, Miller and Modigliani's celebrated dividend irrelevance argument holds, whereby a dividend payment or omission is identical in impact to changes in a firm's share structure. Consequently, the dividend payment itself is irrelevant to valuation; what matters is the...