An annual loss is essentially a necessary condition for dividend reductions in firms with established earnings and dividend records: 50.9 percent of 167 NYSE firms with losses during 1980-85 reduced dividends, versus 1.0 percent of 440 firms without losses. As hypothesized by Merton H. Miller...

This paper studies the dividend policy adjustments of eighty NYSE firms to protracted financial distress as evidenced by multiple losses during 1980-85. Almost all sample firms reduced dividends, and more than half apparently faced binding debt covenants in years they did so. Absent binding debt...

type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>Leverage cross-sections more than a few years apart differ markedly, with similarities evaporating as the time between them lengthens. Many firms have high and low leverage at different times, but few keep debt-to-assets ratios consistently above 0.500. Capital structure...</p>

Equilibrium in the standard finance model implies that value-maximizing firms make taxable equity payouts, even when deferral effectively allows complete tax escape. Since tax deferral and consumption deferral are inherently jointly supplied goods, an excess aggregate supply of future...