A recent dramatic rise in the assets managed by passive corporate debt funds has profound implications for firm financing and payout policy. I use fund-specific flows to isolate exogenous increases in firm-level passive debt ownership at a firm. Firms respond to higher levels of passive debt...

This study addresses the debate over the relation between institutional ownership and dividend payout through the lens of the agency theory. We hypothesize that only institutional investors with certain traits are likely to monitor and conditioning on firms' financial performance, they will use...

Firms added to the S&P 500 index join a prestigious and exclusive club. They want to fit in the club, which creates a “keeping up with the Joneses” effect. Firms pay more attention to their index peers after inclusion and their investment, external financing, and payouts comove more with...

I study the role of institutional stock ownership in facilitating flexibility in firms' payout policy by examining payout reductions during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Treating the financial crisis as a systemic, negative shock to firms' access to capital markets, I find that firms with...

This paper examines the impact of controlling shareholders' stock pledge on institutional shareholding using the sample of Chinese listed firms. Stock pledge means shareholders use stock of listed firms as the pledged assets to apply for loans. Using the sample of Chinese listed firms during the...

In this paper, we analyze the effects of common institutional blockholders (CIBs) on the dividend policies of investee firms. We find that firms are more likely to pay dividends (and pay larger dividends) when dividends are more prevalent among other firms held by a CIB. We establish causality...

This paper studies the impact of banks' dividend restrictions on the behavior of their institutional investors. Using an identification strategy that relies on the within investor variation and a difference in difference setup, I find that funds permanently decrease their ownership shares at...

This study examines the relation between corporate governance practices measured by Transparency Disclosure Index (TDI) and dividend policy in Poland. Our empirical approach, constructs measures of the quality of the corporate governance for 110 non-financial companies listed on Warsaw Stock...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

Our study provides evidence on the share price reactions to the announcement of equity issues in Germany, where capital market is characterized by institutional features distinct from the U.S. market. German seasoned equity issues yield a positive market reaction which contrasts to the...