We compare the payout policies of US industrials and banks over the past 30 years to better understand dividends, especially for banks. For industrials, dividends grow strongly after 2002, when the declining propensity to pay reverses. Banks have a higher and more stable propensity to pay...

This paper examines how financial reporting regulations affect, and respond to, macroeconomic cycles by exploring a positive framework in which regulators subject to political pressures respond to cyclical demands by borrowers and lenders. We establish that, as economic conditions initially...