Government Ownership and Dividend Policy: Evidence from Newly Privatized Firms
In this paper we examine the relationship between government ownership and dividend policy. Using a multinational sample of newly privatized firms from 43 countries, we find strong and robust evidence indicating that dividend payout is negatively related to government ownership, consistent with the predictions of the agency theory. We also find that country-level corporate governance affects the relationship between government ownership and dividend policy. Specifically, the adverse effects of government ownership on dividend policy are more pronounced in countries with weak law and order and a lower level of checks and balances. Our results are important, as they show that government ownership, as well as the institutional environment, does in fact affect the critical corporate policies, such as dividend policy, of newly privatized firms.
In this paper, we examine whether managers use information included in stock prices when making labor investment decisions. Specifically, we examine whether stock price informativeness affects…
This paper investigates the impact of labor protection on corporate debt maturity structure. We hypothesize that stronger labor protection is conducive to a greater use of short-term debt maturity…
The corporate governance literature has shown that self-interested controlling owners tend to divert
corporate resources for private benefits at the expense of other shareholders. Such…