This paper examines investors' reactions to dividend reductions or omissions conditional on past earnings and dividend patterns for a sample of 82 U.S. firms that incurred an annual loss during the period 1986-2003. We document that the market reaction for firms with long patterns of past...

This study documents the fact that large dividend increases are followed by a significant increase in leverage, consistent with management increasing the dividend to use up excess debt capacity. However, the leverage increase is not captured by a standard partial adjustment model of leverage....

This study extends the Grullon, Michaely and Swaminathan (2002) analysis by incorporating default risk. Using data for firms that either increased or initiated cash dividend payments during the 23-year period 1986-2008, we find reduction in default risk. This reduction is shown to be a priced...