Does Size Favor Dividends or Retained Earnings?

Earnings and the Elusive Dividends of Health

The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. The Research Department (RES) publishes the Latin American Economic Policies Newsletter, as well as working papers and books, on diverse economic issues. To obtain a complete list of RES publications and read or d...

Stock Prices, Earnings, and Expected Dividends

Long historical averages of real earnings help forecast present values of future real dividends. With aggregate U.S. stock market data (1871-1986), a vector-autoregressive forecast of the present value of future dividends is, for each year, roughly a weighted average of moving-average arnings and current real price, with between two thirds and three fourths of the weight on the earnings measure...

Do dividends convey information about future earnings?

Yes. We find that dividend changes predict future unexpected earnings changes in each of the next four quarters. These earnings impacts are persistent, leading to higher than expected earnings levels for at least three years after the dividend change. These results are robust to various measures of expected earnings, including analyst forecasts and a flexible function of past earnings and retur...

Retained Earnings of Mutual Funds

Dividends Distribution and Earnings Persistence: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

Dividends distribution of Chinese listed companies is irregular, and the level of dividends can’t match that of earnings persistence. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between dividends distribution, including payout policy and level of cash dividends, and earnings persistence. Different from current literature, this paper is the first to investigate the relationship between ...