Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jacrfn/v14y2001i1p67-79.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?

Author

Listed:
  • Eugene F. Fama
  • Kenneth R. French
Abstract
The proportion of U.S. firms paying dividends drops sharply during the 1980s and 1990s. Among NYSE, AMEX, and Nasdaq firms, the proportion of dividend payers falls from 66.5% in 1978 to only 20.8% in 1999. The decline is due in part to an avalanche of new listings that tilts the population of publicly traded firms toward small firms with low profitability and strong growth opportunities—the timeworn characteristics of firms that typically do not pay dividends. But this is not the whole story. The authors' more striking finding is that, no matter what their characteristics, firms in general have become less likely to pay dividends. The authors use two different methods to disentangle the effects of changing firm characteristics and changing propensity to pay on the percent of dividend payers. They find that, of the total decline in the proportion of dividend payers since 1978, roughly one‐third is due to the changing characteristics of publicly traded firms and two‐thirds is due to a reduced propensity to pay dividends. This lower propensity to pay is quite general—dividends have become less common among even large, profitable firms. Share repurchases jump in the 1980s, and the authors investigate whether repurchases contribute to the declining incidence of dividend payments. It turns out that repurchases are mainly the province of dividend payers, thus leaving the decline in the percent of payers largely unexplained. Instead, the primary effect of repurchases is to increase the already high payouts of cash dividend payers.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2001. "Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(1), pages 67-79, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jacrfn:v:14:y:2001:i:1:p:67-79
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6622.2001.tb00321.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6622.2001.tb00321.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1745-6622.2001.tb00321.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    3. Mikkelson, Wayne H. & Partch, M. Megan & Shah, Kshitij, 1997. "Ownership and operating performance of companies that go public," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 281-307, June.
    4. Jagannathan, Murali & Stephens, Clifford P. & Weisbach, Michael S., 2000. "Financial flexibility and the choice between dividends and stock repurchases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 355-384, September.
    5. Bagwell, Laurie Simon & Shoven, John B, 1989. "Cash Distributions to Shareholders," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 129-140, Summer.
    6. Jain, Bharat A & Kini, Omesh, 1994. "The Post-Issue Operating Performance of IPO Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1699-1726, December.
    7. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda & Skinner, Douglas J, 1992. "Dividends and Losses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1837-1863, December.
    8. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    9. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda & Skinner, Douglas J., 2000. "Special dividends and the evolution of dividend signaling," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 309-354, September.
    10. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    11. Easterbrook, Frank H, 1984. "Two Agency-Cost Explanations of Dividends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 650-659, September.
    12. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. "The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-592, July.
    13. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    14. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hussein Abedi Shamsabadi & Byung-Seong Min & Richard Chung, 2016. "Corporate governance and dividend strategy: lessons from Australia," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(5), pages 583-610, October.
    2. Miglo, Anton, 2007. "Debt-equity choice as a signal of earnings profile over time," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 69-93, March.
    3. Barclay, Michael J. & Fu, Fangjian & Smith, Clifford W., 2021. "Seasoned equity offerings and corporate financial management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Miglo, Anton, 2006. "Debt-equity choice as a signal of profit profile over time," MPRA Paper 1283, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Frankfurter, George M. & Wood, Bob Jr., 2002. "Dividend policy theories and their empirical tests," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 111-138.
    6. Koh, SzeKee & Durand, Robert B. & Watson, Iain, 2011. "Seize the moment: Opportunism in Australian capital markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 374-389, September.
    7. Andres, Christian & Cumming, Douglas & Karabiber, Timur & Schweizer, Denis, 2014. "Do markets anticipate capital structure decisions? — Feedback effects in equity liquidity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 133-156.
    8. Opler, Tim & Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene & Williamson, Rohan, 1999. "The determinants and implications of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-46, April.
    9. Erkan, Asligul & Nguyen, Trung, 2021. "Does inside debt help mitigate agency problems? The case with investment inefficiency and payout policies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    10. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    11. Joliet, Robert & Muller, Aline, 2013. "Capital structure effects of international expansion," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 375-393.
    12. Graham, John R., 1999. "Do personal taxes affect corporate financing decisions?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 147-185, August.
    13. Elena Smirnova & Sirousse Tabriztchi & Cary Lange, 2015. "Cash Holdings, Use of Debt and Dividend Structure of Family Firms," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, May.
    14. Yu, Chih-Ping, 2015. "Financial policies on firm performance: The U.S. insurance industry before and after the global financial crisis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 391-402.
    15. Morais, Flávio & Serrasqueiro, Zélia & Ramalho, Joaquim J.S., 2020. "The zero-leverage phenomenon: A bivariate probit with partial observability approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    16. Tut, Daniel, 2021. "Financial Crisis, Corporate Governance and the Value of Cash Holdings," MPRA Paper 108593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Ampenberger, Markus & Schmid, Thomas & Achleitner, Ann-Kristin & Kaserer, Christoph, 2009. "Capital structure decisions in family firms: empirical evidence from a bank-based economy," CEFS Working Paper Series 2009-05, Technische Universität München (TUM), Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS).
    18. Santanu K. Ganguli, 2019. "Excessive Corporate Liquidity and Stock Return: Evidence from the Indian Business Environment," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 20(4), pages 946-961, August.
    19. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Trojanowski, G., 2005. "Control Structures and Payout Policy," Other publications TiSEM a82281ef-f247-479f-a0e3-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Huang, Kershen & Shang, Chenguang, 2019. "Leverage, debt maturity, and social capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 26-46.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jacrfn:v:14:y:2001:i:1:p:67-79. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1078-1196 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.