This paper investigates the determinants of dividend policy for Australian DCs and MCs. In considering dividend payout ratios we adopt two definitions – cash dividends and total dividends. The cash dividend payout ratios consists of cash dividends to net earnings while total dividend payout ratios consists of both cash dividends and share repurchases to net earnings. The determinants of foreign...

In this paper, we investigate if dividend policy is influenced by ownership type. Within the dividend literature, dividends have a signaling role regarding agency costs, such that dividends may diminish insider conflicts (reduce free cash flow) or may be used to extract cash from firms (tunneling effect) – which could be predominant in emerging markets. We expect firms with foreign ownership an...

This paper provides an empirical analysis about the relationship of corporate governance and cash dividend policy in China. The results show that equity structure and the cash dividends are related. Other factors such as executive pay are related to cash dividends. This paper also analyzes the requirement of cash dividends on behalf of the corporate governance or big shareholders "Tunnel behavi...

Although firms have been distributing dividends to their shareholders for four centuries (Baskin, 1988), the motivation for this corporate policy is under debate in the academic community. In an early paper, Black (1976, p. 5) coined the term the “dividends puzzle” to illustrate the poor understanding of dividend payment policy: “The harder we look at the dividend picture, the more it seems lik...

This study examines the effect of financial flexibility and the level and certainty of operating performance on the choice to change dividends, pay special dividends, and repurchase shares. Firms that increase payouts have excess financial flexibility and exhibit positive concurrent income shocks and decreases in income volatility, but there is limited evidence of subsequent performance improve...

This study investigates the excess funds hypothesis using samples of special dividends, regular dividend increases, and self-tender offers. All three types of firms tend to have funds in excess of industry norms before the events. The excess funds are largely nonrecurring for special dividend and self-tender offer firms and recurring for regular dividend increase firms. The analysis of the stoc...

In this paper we consider the optimal control problem for a insurance company. Our objective is to maximize the expectation of discounted dividends and its terminal value which represents the company liquidation value upon the time of bankruptcy. The surplus of the insurance company is governed by the Brownian motion with a constant drift and a diffusion term. The company can manage its risk ex...