We study the link between institutional ownership stability and dividend payout ratio. We find that stable and large … institutional owners favour dividend paying companies. There also exists a positive association between ownership persistence and … dividend payout. Conversely, firms that change their dividend payout frequently are associated with larger deviations in …

This study addresses the debate over the relation between institutional ownership and dividend payout through the lens … conditioning on firms' financial performance, they will use dividend payout to mitigate the firms' agency problems. We find the … ownership and dividend payout ratio; (2) the positive relation is more salient when the firm has high agency costs; and (3) the …