We show, for a sample of up to 757 industrial firms, in seven Latin American countries from 1994-2014, that these firms exhibit comparatively flexible payout behavior. Flexibility is defined in respect to (i) variability in firm payout status and amounts and (ii) parameters of the...

This paper examines cash dividends and share repurchases in Japan - discerning between keiretsu and non-keiretsu groupings of firms - during the period 1990 to 2008, a period of extensive Japanese corporate governance reform. As in the United States, share repurchases in Japan have grown...

Newly privatized firms increase dividends after divestment, and also pay significantly higher dividends compared to always-private firms. We examine a sample of 83,468 firm-years (358 privatized and 4,894 always-private firms) across 26 countries and show that the dividend premium is...

We examine state income and reputation incentives to account for the high dividends of privatized firms. Consistent with these agency-cost based incentives, we show that the extent of state ownership positively impacts corporate dividends. We distinguish between the empirical importance of these...