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This study aims to investigate the effects of peers on corporate payout policies in one of the largest emerging markets – India. It also examines the motives for mimicking payout decisions.

The sample is composed of 3,024 non-financial and non-government firms listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for the period 1995 to 2020. To encounter the endogeneity problem, the instrumental variable technique based on peer firms' idiosyncratic risk is used to estimate the effects of peers on firms' payout policy. To define peer reference groups, the authors use the basic industry classification of the firms.

The results indicate a significant positive impact of peers on firms' dividend policies in India. A firm with all dividend-paying peers is more likely to declare dividends than the one with no dividend-paying peers. Further, peer effects are found to be more pronounced amongst larger and older firms, thus supporting the rivalry theory of mimicking.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the present study is the first of its kind that attempts to understand peer effects on payout decisions in an emerging market India, that offers a unique institutional setting. Moreover, the authors extend the existing literature by investigating the peer effects on a firm's payout policies considering various firm-level characteristics, such as growth opportunity, cash holding, financial constraint and profitability, which previous studies have not taken into consideration. These results provide additional insights into the heterogeneity and motives behind peer effects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of investment opportunities and corporate finance on dividend payout policy.

This issue is tested with a sample of 34 emerging market countries covering a 17‐year period, 1990‐2006. Fixed effects panel model is employed in our estimation.

A significantly negative relationship between investment opportunity set and dividend payout policy is found. There are, however, insignificant effects of the various measures of corporate finance namely, financial leverage, external financing, and debt maturity on dividend payout policy. Profitability and stock market capitalization are also identified as important in influencing dividend payout policy. Profitable firms are more likely to support high dividend payments to shareholders. However, firms in relatively well‐developed markets tend to exhibit low dividend payout policy.

The main value of the paper is in respect of the fact that it uses a large dataset from emerging market countries. The results generally support existing literature on investment opportunity set and dividend payout policy.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between litigation risk and payout policy.

The authors employ various regression techniques including probit, logit and tobit regression methodologies to study the relationship between litigation risk (contemporaneous measures, litigation dummy) and payout policy (dividend payout likelihood and dividend yield). The authors also conduct several robustness tests.

The authors find that firms involved in a lawsuit have a lower propensity to distribute dividends to shareholders. In particular, the authors document a negative relationship between litigation risk and payout policy as measured by dividend payout likelihood and dividend yield. The results are robust to a series of robustness tests including using alternate regression specifications, alternate measures of litigation and payout policy, a propensity-score matched sample and using an instrumental variable.

The paper identifies another determinant of payout policy and documents another avenue whereby legal institutions affect corporate payout policy. The link between litigation risk and payout policy is of interest to the business community, financial economists, management and the investing public.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which corporate board attributes influence dividend payout policies.

A total number of 2,842 firm’s year-observations of Malaysian non-financial firms representing from various industries. The firms were scrutinized over a period of 14 financial years covering from 2005 to 2018. The data was in a panel form given the cross-sectional and time-series nature. The fixed effect is used as the main technique for analysis. The OLS and random effects techniques are used for robustness for this study.

The results revealed that the proportion of board independence, board tenure, board size and CEO duality have a positive and statistically mixed effect on dividend pay-out. However, the corporate board diversity and board member age had a negative association with dividend payouts. Overall, the results suggest that firms with well-organized corporate board attribute affect positively on dividend pay-out policy.

This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of internal governance mechanisms by presenting evidence of the substitution hypothesis in an emerging economy in which firms operate within a unique regulatory framework and board composition.

The dividend payout behaviour of firms is a well‐studied subject in finance. In recent times, the influence of macro economic factors and understanding their implications far corporate financial decisions has assumed significant importance. The objective of this paper is to study the dividend payout behaviour of firms in India under monetary policy restrictions. Monetary policy restrictions are expected to affect the availability and cost of external fund relative to internal funds. The hypothesis is that during monetary policy restrictions the dividend payout policy changes and payouts reduce.

The Lintner framework is extended to examine the impact of these restrictions on the dividend payout. Balanced panel data of 571 firms for years are used, from 1989 to 1997 together with, the GMM estimator, which is the most suitable methodology in a dynamic setting.

The results show that Indian firms have lower target ratios and higher adjustment factors. The finding suggests that the restricted monetary policies have a significant influence on the dividend payout behaviour of Indian firms; they cause about a 5‐6 per cent reduction in the payout ratios.

The findings of this paper suggest that macro‐economic policies do have an impact on corporate financing decisions. The future research should examine the impact of various other macro‐economic policies and its components on the corporate financing decisions of firms.

The significance of the macro economic policy variables suggests that monetary policy restrictions do have an impact on the cost of raising funds, and the information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers increases, which forces companies to reduce their dividend payout.

To one's knowledge this is the first study providing evidence of the restricted monetary policy constraining the dividend payout policies of firms in India.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of board structure on dividend policy of Australian corporate firms. It also considers the traditional explanations of corporate dividend choice, such as agency cost theory, signalling hypothesis, the life cycle hypothesis along with tax-based explanations of dividend policy.

The final sample consists of 413 non-financial firms that are part of the All Ordinaries Index. The causal analysis was undertaken in three stages. In the first stage, the authors analyse the likelihood of paying dividends. And classify all firms as either dividend payers or non-payers. The authors then model this binary variable as a function of different sets of variables. In the second stage, the authors analyse the factors determining the magnitude of dividend payout by those firms that have paid a dividend. In contrast, stage three employs all firms – those which did not pay any dividend and those firms which paid a dividend.

For the study period 2004-2009, this study finds that board independence has a significant positive influence on the dividend payout of Australian firms. This finding is consistent with the “outcome” model of La Porta et al. (2000). This study also finds that size has a significant positive influence on the dividend payout of Australian firms thus providing support for the agency cost view of dividend policy. Similarly, this study also finds support for the signalling hypothesis and the life cycle theory given the significant positive influence of profitability and the significant negative influence of current losses and growth opportunities on the dividend policy of Australian firms.

The findings of the study are robust with to alternative measures of variables employed and are not influenced by the global financial crisis. However, this study did not consider the possible endogenous and multiple relationships between dividends, debt, profitability, cash holdings and governance structures given the limited study period considered.

This study finds that board independence has a significant positive influence on the dividend behaviour of Australian firms. This suggests that dividends and independent directors play complementary governance roles. While dividends provide the monitoring and disciplinary roles, independent directors act as catalysts for enhancing effective board functioning. These findings have implications for corporate governance policies and the payout policies.

Though the governance role of dividends has long been recognized in the literature (Easterbrook, 1984; Jensen, 1986), very few studies analyse the influence of board characteristics on the decision to pay dividends in Australia. Given the distinct Australian setting where the tax imputation system allows companies to pay franked dividends to domestic investors, this study provides evidence on the interaction of corporate and dividend policies. This study finds that dividend polices are influenced by percentage franking of dividends. This study also finds that board independence has a significant positive influence on the dividend policy of Australian firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the significant dividend tax rate reduction for individual investors in Canada in 2006 affected firms’ payout policies.

Using regression models, the authors examine the impact of the 2006 dividend tax cut on dividends and share repurchases in Canadian listed firms from 2003 to 2008. The authors also ran a multinomial logit regression to examine choices between payout policies.

Following the tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts, with larger increases for firms in which shareholders benefited from the reduced tax rate. However, the 2006 tax cut appears to have had no negative effect on distributions through share repurchases. After the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms owned by shareholders subject to dividend taxes were more likely to use a combination of distribution mechanisms than share repurchases only, dividends only, or no payouts.

Shareholders’ tax preferences are an important factor for firms to consider when designing payout distribution policies. Following the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts.

The findings provide tax regulators with insight into how firms react to tax reform. They suggest that firms adapt their payout policy in the face of: a noteworthy dividend tax cut (6.2 per cent); a dividend tax cut that does not encourage tax arbitrage; and a dividend tax cut that does not economically favour dividend payment over share repurchases.

The paper considers the 2006 dividend tax rate cut in Canada, which presents a number of significant features that allow capturing the effect of a tax cut on payout policies.

This paper examines the impact of dividend policy on stock market liquidity, and whether the dividend payouts has an asymmetric effect on stock liquidity.

A multivariate panel-data regression analysis is conducted for a sample of the largest 411 nonfinancial US firms. Three main hypothesis are tested: (1) whether dividend payouts impact affect stock liquidity, (2) whether low and high dividend payments can asymmetrically effect on stock liquidity and (3) whether the presence of the GFC has an impact the relationship between dividend payments and stock liquidity.

The study finds that dividend policy is adversely associated with stock liquidity. This supports the prediction of the liquidity-dividend hypothesis. The authors also report that stock liquidity asymmetrically responds to changes in dividend payouts, confirming the prediction of the dividend-signaling approach. More specifically, higher dividend payments decrease stock liquidity by a lower magnitude than the increase in stock liquidity resulting from lower dividend payments. Finally, the presence of the GFC weakened the relationship between dividend payments and stock liquidity.

The paper can help in performing future research by using different dataset covering the COVID-19 crisis.

The paper allows market participants to better understand the impact of dividend policy and its asymmetric effects on stock liquidity. The authors’ analyses can direct investors and regulators to adopt new supervisory devices to create an appropriate level of dividend payouts that helps to effectively support the level of stock liquidity.

The paper intends to support the business community and to make strong contributions to the economic development and the welfare of the community.

The originality comes from its new evidence as it can help in assessing the importance of dividend policy and its asymmetric impact on stock liquidity in the full sample and during the GFC. The paper is helpful in performing future analyses using a new sample period for another set of data as well as accounting for COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

This study aims to examine the effect of corporate governance on firms' dividend payout policy in sub‐Saharan Africa. The study also aims to examine how dividend payout influences corporate governance.

Using a sample made up 27 Ghanaian firms, 177 Nigerian firms, 51 Kenyan firms, and 270 South African firms covering the period 1997‐2006, the paper employs a simultaneous panel regression model in its estimation.

The results show that board composition and board size exhibit significantly positive relationship with dividend payout in Kenya and Ghana, respectively. Institutional ownership positively influences dividend payout among South African and Kenyan firms. In the case of Nigeria, all the corporate governance measures show significantly negative effects on dividend payout. The findings clearly suggest that, with respect to South Africa, Kenya and Ghana, good corporate governance structures lead to high‐dividend payout, probably due to easy access to and low cost of external finance. However, in Nigeria, improving the governance structures may be associated with high‐earnings retention or low‐dividend payment in order to reduce cost of external finance. We found in the case of Ghana that, dividend payout positively affects board composition, suggesting that Ghanaian firms with high‐payout tend to adopt good corporate governance structures in order to ensure protection of shareholder interest. The findings of this study certainly have important policy implications.

This present study contributes to the corporate governance literature by looking at the importance of corporate governance in influencing firms' dividend behaviour in selected African countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of product market competition on dividend payout and share repurchases in Australia in which a full dividend imputation system has been in place since 1987.

Panel data estimation with industry and year-fixed effects is employed to examine the role of industry competition on dividend payout and share repurchases. The paper uses a sample of ASX200 non-financial firms, including 4,272 observations over the period 1992–2015. To address the endogeneity problem, the authors utilize the event of Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which became effective on 01 January 2005, and perform a difference-in-difference analysis.

The authors find that firms operating in competitive markets are likely to pay more dividends and repurchase more shares to reduce agency costs. The positive relation between industry competition and dividends is stronger among firms where the CEO and the Chairman of the Board are the same person and among firms with higher market-to-book ratio and higher standard deviation of stock returns. The study results are robust when the authors account for the impact of franking credit on dividend payment. In the difference-in-difference analysis, the authors find strong evidence of a casual relation that product competition drives changes in dividend policy.

The findings are consistent with the notion that intense product market competition can mitigate agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with the information signalling explanation of market competition. As such, regulators may want to introduce policies that encourage more market competition (e.g. market deregulation) to enhance market efficiency.

This study incorporates product market competition in explaining the firm payout policy.