Chinese companies report year-end earnings and dividends simultaneously, so when the two sets of news are in conflict, the relative importance of earnings versus dividends can be disentangled. Chinese dividend announcements take precedence over earnings news, as revealed by Cumulative Absolute...

This study examines the underlying factors which influence and cross-sectionally explain differences in the degree of dividend smoothing of firms. Differences in corporate dividend smoothing are documented by estimating the sensitivity of corporations' dividend payout ratios to changes in...