DIVIDEND POLICY IN MALAYSIA: A COMPARISON OF DETERMINANTS PRE AND POST MALAYSIAN CODE ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

This study was aimed at examining the differences between dividend policy determinants pre- and post-Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) 2012. Several factors, including profitability, lagged dividend, free cash flow, debt, firm size, investment opportunities market risk were tested. The investigated a total number of 631 non-financial firms in Malaysia that covered 7830 firm-year observations from 2005 to 2011 (pre-MCCG) 2013 2019 (post-MCCG). used pooled Ordinary Least Square (OLS) random fixed effect, with robust standard error. results demonstrated seven factors tested only four found be significant determining pre-MCCG, five post MCCG. pre-MCCG test revealed before revised MCCG 2012, as follows: size. However, there slight changes range affecting policy, Post-MCCG size consistently determined policy; however, debt no longer determinant Additionally, opportunity post-MCCG