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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine cross‐sectional differences in the profits, returns and risk of high‐ and low‐market‐to‐book ratios (M/B) stocks before and after the initiation of regular cash dividend payments. Design/methodology/approach– This study uses parametric and non‐parametric statistics and ordinary least squares regression to test for differences in the profits, returns and risk of high‐ and low‐M/B stocks before and after dividend initiation. Findings– Low‐M/B stocks display the most positive price reaction to dividend initiation announcements. High‐M/B firms have larger profits, cash levels and capital expenditure before and at the time of dividend initiation, but more closely resemble the low‐M/B firms in terms of these characteristics within three years following dividend initiation. Excess returns earned by low‐M/B firms are related to decreases in systematic risk, while the returns of high‐M/B firms are related to their higher profitability. Research limitations/implications– Averaging results from 1965‐2000 does not account for possible changes in the information content of dividend initiations over time (as evidenced by steadily declining dividend yields over this period). Practical implications– The findings are consistent with the idea that firms begin paying dividends as they are maturing into a slower growth period, and do not support the idea that dividend initiation signals faster future earnings growth. Originality/value– The analysis adds to the body of knowledge by explicitly conditioning the expectations from various dividend theories based upon individual firms’ growth phase as reflected in their M/B ratios, and suggests that signaling, agency and risk explanations for dividends must be considered jointly with a firm's growth prospects when studying dividend events.

The purpose of this paper is to identify three (maturity, agency, and information) effects that help explain the change in idiosyncratic volatility after a firm initiates a dividend.

The paper uses a cross-sectional analysis where the standard errors are adjusted for heteroskedasticity. As for robustness check, the authors perform two-stage analysis to control for potential self-selection bias. The authors also control for 2003 Dividend Tax Cut effect, matching-firm volatility, and confounding events.

Using a sample of 688 dividend-initiating firms for a period of 1977 to 2010, the authors find evidence consistent with the hypotheses based on the maturity, agency, and information effects. The volatility changes upon the dividend initiation can be reliably explained by the changes in profit volatility and free cash flow per total assets, and whether the firm consummated a stock split prior to the dividend initiation. The information effect is also found to be economically significant.

By studying a firm’s decision to initiate a dividend and its impact on the change in its volatility, the research helps contribute to the payout policy and volatility literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dividend initiation announcements made by firms in the information technology sector as defined in a modern system of industrial classification.

On the basis of a modern classification of the information technology industry, the authors examine a wide range of corporate performance and management measures to discriminate between the two theories of the information revealed by the announcement of dividend initiations, the signaling, and life cycle theories.

The empirical results are more consistent with the corporate life cycle theory of dividends than with the information signaling hypothesis. This finding helps clarify the nature of the information revealed by the announcement.

The paper has clear implications for investors who are interested in the growth prospects of technology firms, or for others interested in their prospective stability and degree of maturity.

Local investors have the ability to impact the stock prices and returns of local firms. However, the impact of news made by a firm on local investors and neighboring companies is absent from the academic literature. The purpose of this paper is to fill that void and examine how a local investor clientele affects the stock market reactions of firms located within the same geographic proximity as a news-generating firm.

After accounting for firm, industry, and geographic characteristics, this study examines how a firm’s dividend initiation announcement (positive news) influences stock prices of seemingly unrelated firms within the same metropolitan statistical area (MSA).

Dividend-paying firms located in areas with a higher percentage of dividend clientele experience a positive comovement reaction when a seemingly unrelated firm within the same MSA announces a dividend initiation. The positive reactions are specifically for dividend-paying firms, while non-dividend payers exhibit no significant response. These results are robust to numerous regression methods and alternative explanations.

These findings are consistent with the positive-investor-attention hypothesis, suggesting positive spillover effects from news announcements for other local firms in the presence of individual investor clientele.

This is the first study to link how news generated by one firm can influence other geographically local firms, providing evidence on the impact of individual investor clientele on stock returns of local non-news firms.

We investigate the empirical characteristics of firms resuming cash dividends to determine if dividend resumption is most like dividend initiation, a large dividend increase, or a completely unique event. Firms that resume dividends earn considerably larger returns than firms initiating or increasing dividends, both before and after the announcement. Dividend‐resuming firms exhibit changes in profits similar to firms increasing dividends, but the risk change following dividend resumption is more like that reported by studies of dividend initiation. These findings are unaffected by the length of time it takes firms to resume paying cash dividends, or whether the firm also declares a stock split and/or stock dividend during the period surrounding the resumption announcement. We conclude that dividend resumption is sufficiently unlike other dividend events to be regarded and studied as its own unique event.

The purpose of this study tests whether political instability influence financial decision-making behavior of Tunisian-listed firms, in particular dividend payout policy.

This paper uses dividend payout decisions announced over the period 2008–2015 by nonfinancial firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange. A logistic regression is applied to analyze the relationship between political instability and dividend payout decision “changes. These latter are: past non-payers” dividend initiation, past payers' dividend termination, dividend payout “increasing and dividend payout” decreasing. Political instability variables used are as follows: number of changes in government head and dummy variables indicating the changes of ruling party and election year.

This study shows that government head changes are positively related to dividend initiation decisions while changes in ruling party are negatively related to termination dividend decisions except for family controlled ones. These firms are more likely to stop dividend on period of ruling party changes. Moreover, firms become unwilling to increase dividend payment on the period of political instability (changes in ruling party and government head and elections) and become willing to decrease dividend payment only when the government head changes.

The empirical findings contribute to the current debate on the signaling power of dividend policy in emerging market where raising equity capital is difficult and controlling shareholders prefer reinvest benefit to pay dividends. In addition, this study has important implications for regulators and governments struggling to design policies to improve investors' confidence and boost market activity. Indeed, investors may use corporate payout as a signal for better governance.

To the author' best knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate and to compare the effect of three political instability sources; government head changes, changes in ruling party and elections, on dividend payout decision changes. This paper provides evidence that firms facing political unstable environment seek to achieve two goals when they make dividend policy: reducing financial distress probability and attracting minority owners.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the ongoing debate of dividend policy, which is considered one of the most controversial topics in corporate finance literature.

The paper provides a survey of literature; it, first, outlines the main theoretical arguments of dividend policy and then critically discusses the most important and influential previous empirical studies in the dividend literature.

The analysis of literature review detects that no general consensus has yet been reached after many decades of investigation, despite extensive debate and countless research. Consequently, the main motivation for paying dividends is still unsolved and thus remains as a puzzle. In addition, there is no doubt that carrying the dividend debate into the context of emerging markets attaches more pieces to this puzzle.

This paper offers an updated and more comprehensive survey of literature by examining the relationship between theory and practice from both developed and emerging markets.

This chapter investigates the relationship between financial measures and dividend payout policy choices of firms. We examine why firms choose to pay dividends continuously, intermittently, or not pay them. Specifically, the findings provide evidence that firms with relatively larger debts tend to pay dividends less frequently than firms with smaller debts.

The results also suggest that good financial performers are more likely to pay dividends more regularly. Additionally, the results of this study indicate that highly leveraged firms tend to make less frequent payouts than lowly leveraged firms.

Overall, this research adds to our understanding of firms’ dividend payout policy choices. First, evidence on the relationship between the various types of financial measures and firms’ choice of dividend payout frequencies should be useful to investors. Second, the findings of this study provide financial statement users with useful information about the firm’s dividend payout patterns. Third, in general, it also adds to the accounting and finance literature on dividends.

The authors measure the cost of equity to earnings yield differential for a sample of 2,035 non-financial firms. In a series of Logit and Tobit regressions, the authors examine if the cost of equity to earnings yield differential is related to dividend policy in the manner predicted by agency theory.

Agency theory says a firm's optimal dividend policy is partially determined by the relationship between the earnings yield and the cost of equity capital. When the cost of equity is higher (lower) than the earnings yield, firms are motivated to (not) pay dividends as this reduces the cost of capital and holding other things constant, increases corporate valuations. The authors test whether managers set dividend policies to maximize the value of the firm.

The study’s findings show that when the cost of equity is higher (lower) than earnings yield, firms are more (less) likely to be dividend payers and the payouts are higher (lower). The results are robust to the inclusion of share repurchases as an alternative to cash distributions. The study’s findings support the cost of equity hypothesis and are consistent with alternative dividend theories.

The study’s findings support the cost of equity hypothesis and are consistent with alternative dividend theories. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper testing the cost of equity hypothesis.

The purpose of this paper is to observe whether the entrenchment of managers can affect firms’ dividend disbursement decisions and investor sentiment in the Tunisia context.

The sample includes all non-financial listed stocks in the Tunisia stock exchange during the years 2004–2017. Moreover, the entrenchment of managers is measured by five proxy explained the managers rooting from all listed firms. The propensity to pay dividends is measured by the dividend yield.

The findings yield qualitatively consistent with the previous research. After controlling for the effect of a manager’s behavior and different entrenchment phase, the result shows that entrepreneurial the firm’s decision to pay dividends could be influenced by the managers’ entrenchment.

The result is limited at the level of the non-financial companies listed in the BVMT, but in future studies, the investigation with other countries can be compared.

Moreover, investors in Tunisia show their preference for a dividend to self-control and satisfaction and increase their profit, especially in an abnormal economic situation explained by the Tunisian political crisis.

The originality of this paper is to investigate both the important role of the entrenchment and cycle life of the manager on the decision to distribute dividends and the investor sentiment. Moreover, the author’s problem may be a reference for future investigation talking about the managers’ psychology like opportunism.