In inefficient stock markets payout policy may be directly relevant for stock prices, not only by way of announcement effects considered in signaling games. We show that paying out free cash flow, either as a dividend or via repurchasing shares, has in general a positive price impact and...

This study examines whether the CEO uses share repurchases to sell her equity grants at inflated stock prices, a concern regularly voiced in politics and media. We find that the timing of buyback programs and equity compensation, i.e., the granting, vesting, and selling of equity, is largely...

Differences in management and shareholders priorities have been recognized and accepted to exist creating problems in the agency to which financial theorists opined that dividend payments is the best means of resolving the conflict. Results obtained using the multiple regression equation model...

We survey the literature on payout policy, with a particular emphasis on developments in the last two decades. Of the traditional motives of why firms pay out (agency, signaling, and taxes), the cross-sectional empirical evidence is most persuasive in favor of agency considerations. Studies...

This paper provides insight in dividend policy of publicly listed companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and investigates appearance of dividend smoothing behavior. The results show increase in portion of dividend paying companies over time while dividend smoothing phenomenon is virtually...

Over 40% of firms that make payouts also raise capital during the same year, resulting in 31% of aggregate share repurchases and dividends being externally financed, primarily with debt. Most externally financed payouts are the result of firms persistently setting payouts above free cash flow....

We examine how product market threats influence firm payout policy and cash holdings. We develop new measures of competitive threats using firms' product text descriptions. Our primary measure, product market fluidity, captures changes in rival firms' products relative to the firm's products. We...

The European Union (EU) has been debating for several years whether to change from the legal capital regime as regulated under the Second Company Law Directive to a solvency test regime as applied in the US, for example. Based on an analysis of direct compliance costs and capital maintenance...

This paper examines the dividend policy for firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and test the life cycle hypothesis. The sample involves 6031 observations of dividend payments over the 16-year period 1992-2007. Consistent with the prediction of the life cycle hypothesis, the results...

We consider a setting in which insiders have information about income that outside shareholders do not, but property rights ensure that outside shareholders can enforce a fair payout. To avoid intervention, insiders report income consistent with outsiders' expectations based on publicly...