Dividends and expropriation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Faccio, M; Lang, LHP; Young, L
• 署名单位: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart; Chinese University of Hong Kong; Chinese University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.1.54
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 54-78
• 关键词: corporate-ownership; information-content; taxes; earnings; POLICY; COSTS; announcements; INITIATIONS; performance; returns

摘要

Whereas most U.S. corporations are widely held, the predominant form of ownership in East Asia is control by a family, which often supplies a top manager. These features of crony capitalism are actually more pronounced in Western Europe. In both regions, the salient agency problem is expropriation of outside shareholders by controlling shareholders. Dividends provide evidence on this. Group-affiliated corporations in Europe pay higher dividends than in Asia, dampening insider expropriation. Dividend rates are higher in Europe. but lower in Asia, when there are multiple large shareholders, suggesting that they dampen expropriation in Europe, bur exacerbate it in Asia.