We study the importance of investor rights in payout policy determination in Asia, using a sample of up to 52,778 firm years. The listed Asian firms located in relatively high investor protection, common law countries, have a greater tendency to pay out and, if they do so, they tend to pay out...

We analyze the role of firm-level corporate governance in determining the precommitment payout policy of emerging market firms and investigate if there is a precommitment lifecycle effect. Unlike previous studies for the U.S. firms, we only find evidence of precommitment among relatively...

We show, for a sample of up to 757 industrial firms, in seven Latin American countries from 1994-2014, that these firms exhibit comparatively flexible payout behavior. Flexibility is defined in respect to (i) variability in firm payout status and amounts and (ii) parameters of the...

We study how media coverage impacts pricing of IPOs around the world. Higher media coverage in the pre-IPO period leads to lower IPO initial returns. The effect is mitigated in countries with better financial reporting quality, greater shareholder rights protection, and more stringent media...

We examine state income and reputation incentives to account for the high dividends of privatized firms. Consistent with these agency-cost based incentives, we show that the extent of state ownership positively impacts corporate dividends. We distinguish between the empirical importance of these...