This paper offers a novel explanation for why some firms prefer to pay dividends rather than repurchase shares. It is well-known that institutional investors are relatively less taxed than individual investors, and that this induces “dividend clientele” effects. We argue that firms determine the proportions of institutional and individual owners when they set dividends. Institutions have a rela...

The 2003 dividend tax reform has generated renewed interest in understanding the economic effects of dividend taxation. The reform introduced favored tax treatment of individual dividend income, whereby dividends are taxed at a rate of 15 percent instead of facing the regular progressive individual income tax schedule with a top rate of 35 percent. Several recent studies have used the 2003 tax ...

This thesis consists of three essays that examine the impact of tax policy on firms’ decisions to invest in productive capital. The first chapter uses newly-collected data on transaction prices of used construction machinery to examine the impact and incidence of recent tax incentives for investment. Theory predicts that incentives applying only to new investment should drive a wedge equal to t...

Dividend has been a matter of concern since the concept limited liability firms came to existence. The uncertainty regarding dividend policy is supposed hunker down unless we move away from whack-a-mole approach long-winded solution problem policy. issue gets exacerbated because inclination towards valuation by people who call shots in firms. This paper explores association with rising NPAs Ind...

We develop and estimate a model of the dynamic behavior of aggregate corporate dividends as a function of the change in permanent earnings of firms. Although structured along the lines of the Lintner-Brittain-FamaBabiak models of individual-firm dividend behavior, the model uses changes in stock prices instead of accounting earnings to measure permanent earnings changes. The performance of the ...

This study investigates whether product market competition reduces agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders in Japan. We study Japan because of its salient weakness in investor protection and the severity of agency conflicts. In a large sample of Japanese firms we find that Japanese firms in more competitive industries pay more dividends than firms in less comp...