In this study, I investigate on the patterns and the determinants of corporate payout policy in France. After being legalized in 1998, share repurchase has emerged as a significant payout policy; ratio of firms paying dividends has reduced from 77.65% in 1994 to 59.45% in 2004. In order to...

Given the increasing use of equity-incentive compensation in Europe, we examine the effects of executive compensation and investor protection on payout policy. We find a negative (positive) relationship between equity-incentive compensation and dividends (repurchases). In countries with weak...

There are two major mechanisms by which managers distribute cash to shareholders: through dividends and share repurchases. Historically, dividends have been the preferred method, but in recent years, share repurchases have become more popular, with more firms using repurchases than dividends to...

This paper studies the payout policy of Italian firms controlled by large majority shareholders (controlled firms). The paper reports that a firm's share of dividends in total payout (dividends plus repurchases) is negatively related to the size of the cash flow stake of the firm's controlling...

I investigate the effects of firms' proportion of fixed and variable costs on their payout policy. The investigation finds that firms with higher fixed costs pay a lower fraction of their operating income in dividends and share repurchases. Further, these firms return a higher fraction of their...