In spite of considerable research into firm dividend behavior, dividend smoothing has eluded a definitive explanation. This paper provides an agency interpretation of dividend smoothing and offers evidence that variation in corporate governance and managerial incentive conflicts explains...

We study how corporate payout policy responds to changing investor tastes for non-dividend over dividend paying stocks following an increase in housing prices. Exploiting the crossregional dispersion in housing prices within the U.S. market, we find a significant negative effect of growth in...