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This study aims to analyze the influence of taxes and corporate governance on the dividend policy of Brazilian companies.

The authors identify the changes of the tax legislation in Brazil in the period 1986-2011 and check their effect on corporate dividend policies for preferred and common shares. The authors use panel data Probit and Tobit estimation to verify the probability of companies to pay dividends under different tax regimes. The final sample comprises 672 companies, 1,159 traded stocks and 30,134 observations

The authors’ results suggest that changes in the tax legislation have a significant influence on dividend payments. Also, firms do not follow target payout ratios, but dividends are moderately dependent on past payments. Dividend payouts are affected by stock voting rights, privatization and dividend deductibility. Changes in regulation that reduce the agency problems among shareholders affect positively payout ratios.

For managers, maximizing shareholders’ value requires taking into account the consequences of the taxation when designing financial policies for the firm. For investors, stock portfolio selection should take into account payout behavior and how changes in dividend taxation affect stocks’ value. For policymakers, the effects of changes in the tax code on corporate behavior are of utmost importance to stimulate private investment and economic growth.

There are several tax law changes in Brazil within the period analyzed, creating a good opportunity to study the effect of taxation on dividend policy and its dynamics over time.

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 study the concept of purging and present a comparative study of the existing purging methodologies prevailing in the market with a view to evolving a more effective method of capturing the entire impure income to be purged.

To illustrate the present discussion, a case study of purging based on numerical examples has been included. The argument has also been supported with empirical data related to the universe of Sharīʿah-compliant stocks listed on Indian stock exchanges.

During the study, it was found that the existing purging methodologies of calculating impure income to be purged have conceptual and practical shortcomings.

The scope of the current research is limited to calculation of impure income which accrues on account of Sharīʿah non-compliant investments directly or indirectly. It does not try to quantify the benefit which may be imputed in the form of capital gains made in trading of the investee company shares due to higher market value of the shares as a result of the impure income earned by the investee company. The paper has focused on identifying and calculating the impure income on account of interest. Impure income earned from specific Sharīʿah non-compliant products or services has not been considered directly. The reason for this is that companies dealing in such products or services are generally excluded at the business screening stage itself. In the case of those companies which derive a relatively small proportion of their total income from such activities and pass the business screening stage, the quantum of the impure income is not generally reported separately in company accounts.

The result of adopting the proposed methodology will lead to complete purging of impure income (to the extent that is possible under present Company Law and stock exchange reporting regulations). Implementation of the proposed method requires a proper understanding of the working of listed companies and either a sound mathematical background or access to a software application to calculate the impure income to be purged.

The current paper is original and based on the authors’ personal understanding and experience of providing Sharīʿah consultancy services related to Sharīʿah-compliant investments.

This study will examine the impact of cash dividends on the market value of banks listed in Middle East and North African (MENA) emerging countries during the period 2000–2015.

The current study adopts residual income approach based on Ohlson's (1995) valuation model. By testing different statistical techniques, fixed effect is applied on panel data for (144) banks listed on 11 MENA stock markets over the period 2000–2015. Furthermore, additional tests are applied to confirm the primary results.

The analysis reveals that current dividend payouts and dividend yield do not provide information relevant to the establishment of market values in MENA emerging markets; thus, they have no material impact on MENA banks' market values. This lack of current dividend payment effect is consistent with Miller and Modigliani (1961) dividend irrelevance assumption: there is no evidence of either an informational or real cash inflow effect of current dividend payments. The findings of this study can be attributed to the fact that MENA banks may be forced to place more emphasis on allocating money for investment instead of paying dividends given them they are subject to liquidity requirements for investment, expansion, general operations and compliance with regulations. Only after all these financial needs are covered can the remaining surplus be distributed as cash dividends. Therefore, cash dividends represent earnings residual rather than an active decision variable that impacts a firm's market value. This is consistent with the residual dividend hypothesis, which is the crux of Miller and Modigliani (1996) irrelevance theory of dividends.

The current study is restricted to a sample of one type of financial firms, banks, because of the problem of missing data and limited information related to other financial firms for the same period. Therefore, further research could be additional types of financial firms such as insurance firms that play a vital role in MENA emerging economies.

The results of this study have some important implications for banks' dividend policymakers. Dividend policymakers in MENA emerging markets seem to follow residual dividend policy, in which they distribute dividends according to what is left over after all acceptable investment opportunities have been undertaken. This makes for inconsistent and unstable dividend policy trends, making it difficult for investors to predict future dividend decisions. Further, this practice may deliver information to shareholders about a lack of positive future investment opportunities, and this may negatively affect the share value of banks.

This study is the first of its kind – up to the author's knowledge – that examines a large cross-country sample of MENA banks (144) to cover a long time period in the recent past, and, more importantly, after the banking sector in the region has experienced major transformations during last two decades. In addition, most of the MENA region countries included in this study, namely, banks, operate in tax-free environments (there are neither taxes on dividends nor on capital gains). This feature adds complexity to the ongoing dividend debate.

Both the academic literature and practitioners have long noted the need for an equity investment mechanism for worker-controlled firms that alleviates investor anxieties without undermining internal workplace democracy. The purpose of this paper is to outline one such possible mechanism.

The proposal locks together the interests of workers and external investors, via non-voting shares with dividends set by a pre-agreed value-added sharing formula. Each worker is paid a base wage, with the average across the firm being a pre-defined multiple of the national minimum wage. Any additional surplus is split into a number of equal “slices”, with each share receiving one slice as its dividend, and the average worker receiving a pre-agreed number of slices as a bonus.

Workers have an incentive to maximise their own incomes, and in so doing, will also automatically maximise the dividends received by investors, obviating the need for the shares to have normal voting rights. Working on this principle of aligned interests, the authors also discuss reinvestment, worker ownership of non-voting shares and possibilities for a secondary share market. The authors show how this proposal will be a significant step in aligning the interests of investors with owner-workers in a democratic, negotiated way that shares both risk and returns, thus making worker-controlled firms more attractive to equity investment.

In light of the recognised problem of underinvestment in worker-controlled firms and the risk of their degeneration, this paper will interest both academics and practitioners in employee ownership, co-operatives and various forms of workplace democracy.

The purpose of this study is to describe the development of market based accounting research (MBAR) published in Indonesia for 10 years. This study attempts to explain the topics of MBAR, research method used, the variables, between-variable relationship formed, and the units analysis used in MBAR. This research uses qualitative-descriptive method to create descriptive models of MBAR articles published in accounting journals that have been accredited with minimum grade of B. The analysis of 109 MBAR articles of five accounting journals shows that 10 MBAR themes are still potential. Among three methods in MBAR, the multivariate association study is dominant. Some papers use intervening and moderating model to explore the relationship between accounting data and capital market reaction. The results for each theme are described in a research map that shows the relationship between variables (constructs) of MBAR from three units of analysis. This paper finds some implications to MBAR research agenda in the future, especially for meta-analysis research and triangulation research, due to many inconsistencies of the MBAR findings in Indonesia. In addition, accounting standard research topic is still promising in the moment of accounting standards transition.

This study aims to investigate whether there is any influence of the option plan to purchase shares protected from dividends to determine the distribution of dividends in Brazilian companies.

The authors used a Tobit dynamic and regressive regression model because their sample has an index higher than 30% of companies that do not pay dividends. The sample includes companies that pay dividends or not and pay their executives with executive stock option plans and is composed of 1,990 observations from 356 companies from 2010 to 2016.

The results indicated that the presence of a dividend protection clause has a positive association with the distribution of dividends. The authors sought to clarify that companies with a stock option plan protected by the distribution of dividends face fewer restrictions on the distribution of dividends. The authors found that most companies still use only stock options to benefit middle-ranking positions and fit the plan in their remuneration policy. The monitoring of these plans lasts an average of seven years, and specific acquisition conditions are not established with their beneficiaries, who must remain in the company and observe performance metrics.

This study is relevant because the relationship between dividends and stock options has not yet been analyzed in Brazil, especially concerning a dividend-protected option plan, which is a relatively recent modality, even unknown to some companies.

Investors label high (low) book-to-market (B/M) firms as value (growth) companies. The conventional wisdom supports that growth stocks grow faster than the value ones, creating greater shareholder value. The Purpose of this paper is to analyze how stocks of growth and value companies create value for their shareholders in Brazil, compared to the USA market. For this, the authors analyze three dimensions of return.

First, the authors perform portfolios to analyze the growth rates of shareholders’ return. Then, the authors perform regressions to study the explanatory power of the B/M in growth. The data come from Thomson Reuters Eikon database and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. The authors select all non-financial firms with available data from 1997 to 2017.

The profitability of growth firms is higher than the value ones, in almost every year after the portfolios’ formation, with little variation. Contrary to the findings for the US market, growth companies in Brazil show higher dividend growth than value companies.

It is possible that the database does not contain complete and entirely reliable accounting data, which may partially affect the results.

The findings contradict those exposed in the USA. The implications are the inverse of the US study: the duration-based explanation could be a vital factor for the value premium in the Brazilian stock market. Also, the findings support the standard valuation techniques and help the growth rates estimation in the valuation process (top-down approach).

This study is the first to compare the profitability and dividend growth of growth/value stocks in the Brazilian market. Overall, growth stocks have considerable profitability, and dividend growth compared to value stocks.

Although it has often been studied in finance research, the relationship between dividend yields and stock returns remains an unresolved issue, especially in the Korean stock market. When firms continue to pay non-decreasing dividends for three or five years, they may establish a dividend reputation, which could affect this relationship. The author found firms that pay more dividends, larger firms, older firms, more profitable firms, less leveraged firms, firms with less volatile returns, firms with foreign holdings of more than 5%, and firms with more concentrated ownership build dividend reputations. The author also found that the relationship between dividend yields and future stock returns depends on a firm’s dividend reputation. The evidence shows that when firms with higher yields have dividend reputations, they produce higher future returns, whereas there is no significant relationship between yields and returns for firms with no reputation. These results are inconsistent with the findings of studies that use developed market data. In addition, when larger firms with higher growth potential and firms with less concentrated ownership have dividend reputations, future returns are higher.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the direction of the causal relationship between dividend policy (DP) and earnings management (EM).

This research utilizes the panel data analysis to investigate the causal relationship between EM and DP. It provides empirical insights based on a sample of 280 French nonfinancial companies listed on the CAC All-Tradable index during the period of 2008–2015. The study initiates with a Granger causality examination on the unbalanced panel data and employs a dynamic panel approach with the generalized method of moments (GMM). It further estimates the empirical models simultaneously using the three-stage least squares (3SLS) method and the iterative triple least squares (iterative 3SLS) method.

The estimation of our various empirical models confirms the presence of a bidirectional causal relationship between DP and EM.

Our study highlights the prevalence of EM in the French context, particularly within DP. It underscores the need for regulatory bodies, the Ministry of Finance, external auditors and stock exchange organizers to prioritize governance mechanisms for improving the quality of financial information disclosed by companies.

This research is, to the best of our knowledge, the first is to extensively investigate the reciprocal causal relationship between DP and EM in France. Previous studies have not placed a significant emphasis on exploring this bidirectional link between these two variables.