We examine the relation between the shareholder base and payout policy. Consistent with the idea that the shareholder base is related to the cost of external financing we find that fi rms with small shareholder bases have lower payout levels and maintain higher cash holdings. We show that...

We use new data from SEC filings to investigate how S&P 500 firms execute their open market repurchase programs. We find that smaller S&P 500 firms repurchase less frequently than larger firms, and at a price which is significantly lower than the average market price. Their repurchase activity...