Agency theory suggests that CEOs view dividends unfavorably because dividend payouts deprive them of the free cash flow they could otherwise exploit. Using Bebchuk, Cremers, and Peyer's (2011) CEO pay slice (CPS) to measure CEO power, we find that an increase in CEO power by one standard...

We contribute to the literature on dividend policy by relaxing Miller and Modigliani's (1961) perfect capital market assumptions and incorporating a factor that has not been investigated before, i.e. variation in managerial ability. Based on more than 24,000 observations across over 20 years...

Theory suggests that religious piety is associated with greater risk aversion and more conservative financial policies. Returns to shareholders through dividends are much more certain than returns through capital gains expected to be realized far into the future. We hypothesize that religious...

We relax Modigliani and Miller’s (1961) assumption of perfect capital markets for dividends by introducing a market imperfection that has not been investigated before, i.e., the economic uncertainty caused by infectious diseases. We exploit a unique text-based measure of infectious diseases...

This paper examines and compares the dividend policies of American depository receipt (ADR) firms and U.S. firms and identifies the factors that determine these policies for both types of companies. We find that ADR firms have higher dividend yields than U.S. firms, while U.S. firms have higher...