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 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 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...

Newly privatized firms increase dividends after divestment, and also pay significantly higher dividends compared to always-private firms. We examine a sample of 83,468 firm-years (358 privatized and 4,894 always-private firms) across 26 countries and show that the dividend premium is...

With a large sample from Japan during the period of 1990-2012, we find firms that belong to business groups (“keiretsu”) pay more cash dividends when the affiliated dividend-receiving firms have better investment opportunities, are in financial distress, or have a stronger linkage to the...

Examining a large sample of firms with ownership information from Japan, we find firms that belong to business groups (“keiretsu”) pay more cash dividends than non-keiretsu firms, especially when the affiliated dividend-receiving firms have better investment opportunities, are in financial...

Investors globally prefer dividend-paying stocks over non-dividend-paying stocks more in declining than in advancing markets, even accounting for firm-level growth opportunities, size and risk effects. Dividend paying stocks outperform non-dividend paying stocks, from 0.63% (China) to 3.79%...

We study the influence on fi rm risks of NASDAQ and NYSE firm payout initiations and omissions. These pay out events can be interpreted as managerial signals of firm financial life-cycle maturation resulting in concomitant changes in firm risks. We remove confounding payout types and we match on...