Dividends as Reference Points: A Behavioral Signaling Approach

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baker, Malcolm; Mendel, Brock; Wurgler, Jeffrey
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University; New York University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhv058
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 697
• 关键词: EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS; habit formation; loss aversion; INFORMATION; POLICY; announcements; MARKET; MODEL; earnings; preferences

摘要

We outline a dividend signaling model that features investors who are averse to dividend cuts. Managers with strong unobservable cash earnings pay high dividends but retain enough to be likely not to fall short next period. The model is consistent with a Lintner partial-adjustment model, modal dividend changes of zero, stronger market reactions to dividend cuts than increases, comparatively infrequent and irregular repurchases, and a mechanism that does not depend on public destruction of value, which managers reject in surveys. New tests involve stronger reactions to changes from longer-maintained dividend levels and reference point currencies of American Depository Receipt dividends.