We test the impact of taxes and governance systems on dividend payouts across countries. We show that, unlike previous …

We compare the cross-sectional variation in the dividend payout policies of companies across 32 countries. Beyond the … shareholder protection and business disclosures, and market quality in terms of transparency and liquidity; affect the dividend … payout policies. We find that firms have generous dividend payout policies when diverse shareholder demands are strong …

For a sample of 28,895 firms across 30 countries and 29 years, there is a negative relation between dividend tax rates … and dividend payout. Firms increase dividend payout in response to both absolute and relative (to capital gains tax rates …) decreases in dividend tax rates. This negative relation is robust to both increases and decreases and both shocks and continuous …

We find strong international evidence favoring dividend payout as a salient stock characteristic affecting expected … stock returns. We find that dividend-paying stocks outperform non-payers by 0.54% per month in 44 countries, adjusting for … exposures to global and regional risk factors. The majority of the dividend premium is earned during the ex-dividend months. The …

This study presents international evidence on the dividend month premium. In the US, Hartzmark and Solomon (2013) find … abnormally high returns during the months when stocks are predicted to pay a dividend. We test for this predicted dividend month … of the anomaly, though the dividend month forecasting rule also plays a role in explaining abnormal returns …