Date of Award
2005
Degree Type
Honors Paper
Abstract
What motivates a corporation to issue cash dividends? What specific financial factors lead management to make a decision as to the creation or amendment of theirfirm 's dividend policy? Whatfactors are common among firms issuing a dividend to their shareholders, and do these factors share a commonality across sector boundaries and market capitalization ? This study attempts to identify the impact of certain financial variables on the dividend decision/policy of a corporation by analyzing the financial data of over 10,000 publicly traded firms found through the Multexinvestor.com database using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression. The study tests the effects of financial variables (deemed appropriate by thefinance literature) on dividend policy (as measured by the firm 's payout ratio) for a sample of firms screened from the Multexinvestor.com database. By analyzing these selected financial factors on a large sample of firms , this study will also identify those financial variables that have proven historically significant in explaining the dividend decision. The study results add to the body of dividend policy literature by either supporting or rejecting the theories advanced in the literature.
Recommended Citation
Kania, Sharon L., "WHAT FACTORS MOTIVATE THE CORPORATE DIVIDEND DECISION?" (2005). Theses & Honors Papers. 195.
https://digitalcommons.longwood.edu/etd/195
