The proportion of U.S. firms paying dividends drops sharply during the 1980s and 1990s. Among NYSE, AMEX, and Nasdaq firms, the proportion of dividend payers falls from 66.5% in 1978 to only 20.8% in 1999. The decline is due in part to an avalanche of new listings that tilts the population of...

The value premium in U.S. stock returns is robust. The positive relation between average return and book-to-market equity is as strong for 1929 to 1963 as for the subsequent period studied in previous papers. A three-factor risk model explains the value premium better than the hypothesis that...

We use cross-sectional regressions to study how a firm's value is related to dividends and debt. With a good control for profitability, the regressions can measure how the taxation of dividends and debt affects firm value. Simple tax hypotheses say that value is negatively related to dividends...