Corporate dividend decisions
type: CreativeWork
description: The main aims and objectives of my thesis are to test the various conflicting hypotheses developed in the previous literature to explain firms’ dividend policy, focusing specifically on IPOs and cross-country analysis. In particular, I explore the theoretical links in the context of the important dividend theories including signalling, agency costs, lifecycle and catering and then empirically test the hypotheses by using a very large dataset of UK IPOs from 1990 to 2010, which is extracted from offering prospectuses. The first empirical study focuses on two aspects of post-IPO decision-making: the decision to initiate dividends and the timing of dividend initiation. I develop the testable hypotheses by linking the dividend decisions of IPOs with a number of firm characteristics and IPO-specific factors in the context of the theories relating to dividends and IPO. I find a strong negative relation between underpricing and the propensity of dividend initiation. This finding is in line with the implications of Dividend Discount Model and Rock’s (1986) “winner’s curse”. My results show that the likelihood of initiating dividends is positively associated with managerial ownership, underwriter reputation, firm size, profitability and long-term debt ratio. In addition, the results show that the initiation propensity is negatively influenced by a serial of factors including the length of lockup period, VC backing, managerial stock option, growth opportunities of IPOs, technology intensity, and selection of growth stock exchange (i.e. AIM). Finally, I find that the IPOs issued in the years when the market put a price premium on dividend paying payers are more likely to pay dividend after IPO and initiate dividends earlier. Overall, my results show that IPO characteristics relate to dividend decisions of IPOs through miscellaneous mechanisms of dividends. The most homogeneous results are associated with the life cycle and catering theories. There is also some empirical eviden…
abstract: The main aims and objectives of my thesis are to test the various conflicting hypotheses developed in the previous literature to explain firms’ dividend policy, focusing specifically on IPOs and cross-country analysis. In particular, I explore the theoretical links in the context of the important dividend theories including signalling, agency costs, lifecycle and catering and then empirically test the hypotheses by using a very large dataset of UK IPOs from 1990 to 2010, which is extracted from offering prospectuses. The first empirical study focuses on two aspects of post-IPO decision-making: the decision to initiate dividends and the timing of dividend initiation. I develop the testable hypotheses by linking the dividend decisions of IPOs with a number of firm characteristics and IPO-specific factors in the context of the theories relating to dividends and IPO. I find a strong negative relation between underpricing and the propensity of dividend initiation. This finding is in line with the implications of Dividend Discount Model and Rock’s (1986) “winner’s curse”. My results show that the likelihood of initiating dividends is positively associated with managerial ownership, underwriter reputation, firm size, profitability and long-term debt ratio. In addition, the results show that the initiation propensity is negatively influenced by a serial of factors including the length of lockup period, VC backing, managerial stock option, growth opportunities of IPOs, technology intensity, and selection of growth stock exchange (i.e. AIM). Finally, I find that the IPOs issued in the years when the market put a price premium on dividend paying payers are more likely to pay dividend after IPO and initiate dividends earlier. Overall, my results show that IPO characteristics relate to dividend decisions of IPOs through miscellaneous mechanisms of dividends. The most homogeneous results are associated with the life cycle and catering theories. There is also some empirical eviden…
author: Ma, Tao
keywords: HG Finance
date published: 2012
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:38:55Z
provider: City University of London
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: City University London