IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/acctfi/v60y2020is1p1007-1022.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence from New Zealand

Author

Listed:
  • Warwick Anderson
  • Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya
  • Cameron Morrill
  • Helen Roberts

Abstract

Using a model based on Bhattacharyya (2007), we predict a positive (negative) relationship between the earnings retention ratio (dividend payout ratio) and managerial compensation. We use tobit regression to analyse data for New Zealand firms' dividend payouts over the period 1997–2015 and find results consistent with Bhattacharyya (2007). These results hold when the definition of payout is modified to incorporate both common dividends and common share repurchases. Our results indicate that corporate dividend policy among New Zealand firms is perhaps best understood by considering the dividend payout ratio, rather than the level of, or changes in, cash dividends alone.

Suggested Citation

  • Warwick Anderson & Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya & Cameron Morrill & Helen Roberts, 2020. "Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence from New Zealand," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1007-1022, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:60:y:2020:i:s1:p:1007-1022
    DOI: 10.1111/acfi.12399
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.12399
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/acfi.12399?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nawaf Al-Maskati & André J. Bate & Gurmeet S. Bhabra & Robert Faff, 2015. "Diversification, corporate governance and firm value in small markets: evidence from New Zealand," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 55(3), pages 627-657, September.
    2. Miller, Merton H & Rock, Kevin, 1985. "Dividend Policy under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1031-1051, September.
    3. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    4. Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya & Julie Ann Elston & Laura Rondi, 2014. "Executive compensation and agency costs in a family controlled corporate governance structure: the case of Italy," International Journal of Corporate Governance, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(3/4), pages 119-132.
    5. Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Dividends, Share Repurchases, and the Substitution Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1649-1684, August.
    6. Scott Weisbenner, 2000. "Corporate share repurchases in the 1990s: what role do stock options play?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-29, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Christine Jolls, 1998. "Stock Repurchases and Incentive Compensation," NBER Working Papers 6467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Calder, Bobby J & Phillips, Lynn W & Tybout, Alice M, 1982. "The Concept of External Validity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(3), pages 240-244, December.
    10. Easterbrook, Frank H, 1984. "Two Agency-Cost Explanations of Dividends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 650-659, September.
    11. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    12. Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya & Amin Mawani & Cameron Morrill, 2008. "Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(4), pages 521-541, December.
    13. Boyle, Glenn & Roberts, Helen, 2013. "CEO presence on the compensation committee: a puzzle," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 16-26.
    14. Merton H. Miller & Franco Modigliani, 1961. "Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34, pages 411-411.
    15. Jean Tirole, 2006. "The Theory of Corporate Finance," Post-Print hal-00173191, HAL.
    16. John, Kose & Williams, Joseph, 1985. "Dividends, Dilution, and Taxes: A Signalling Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1053-1070, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ravichandran K. Subramaniam & Khakan Najaf & Murugasu Thangarajah, 2022. "Board Governance, Dividend Payout and Executive Compensation in Malaysian Firms," Capital Markets Review, Malaysian Finance Association, vol. 30(1), pages 17-35.

    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. Nalinaksha Bhattacharyya & Amin Mawani & Cameron Morrill, 2008. "Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(4), pages 521-541, December.
    2. Roni Michaely & Stefano Rossi & Michael Weber & Michael Weber, 2017. "The Information Content of Dividends: Safer Profits, Not Higher Profits," CESifo Working Paper Series 6751, CESifo.
    3. Luís Krug Pacheco & Clara Raposo, 2009. "ON the TIMING of INITIAL STOCK REPURCHASES," Working Papers de Gestão (Management Working Papers) 06, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    4. Andres, Christian & Doumet, Markus & Fernau, Erik & Theissen, Erik, 2015. "The Lintner model revisited: Dividends versus total payouts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 56-69.
    5. H.Kent Baker & Gary E. Powell & E.Theodore Veit, 2002. "Revisiting the dividend puzzle," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(4), pages 241-261.
    6. Brav, Alon & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Michaely, Roni, 2005. "Payout policy in the 21st century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 483-527, September.
    7. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Trojanowski, G., 2005. "Patterns in Payout Policy and Payout Channel Choice of UK Firms in the 1990s," Discussion Paper 2005-002, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    8. Simshauser, P., 2022. "On dividends and market valuations of Australia’s listed electricity utilities: regulated vs. merchant," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2229, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. De Cesari, Amedeo & Huang-Meier, Winifred, 2015. "Dividend changes and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-17.
    10. 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.
    11. Darakhshan Younis & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2014. "Market Imperfections and Dividend Policy Decisions of Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2014:99, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    12. Fayez A. Elayan & Jingyu Li & Maureen E. Donnelly & Allister W. Young, 2009. "Changes to Income Trust Taxation in Canada: Investor Reaction and Dividend Clientele Theory," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5-6), pages 725-753.
    13. Qin, Wei & Liang, Quanxi & Jiao, Yan & Lu, Meiting & Shan, Yaowen, 2022. "Social trust and dividend payouts: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Fabio Braggion & Lyndon Moore, 2011. "Dividend Policies in an Unregulated Market: The London Stock Exchange, 1895--1905," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(9), pages 2935-2973.
    15. Paul Tanyi & David B. Smith & Xiaoyan Cheng, 2021. "Does firm payout policy affect shareholders’ dissatisfaction with directors?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 279-320, July.
    16. du Jardin, Philippe & Séverin, Eric, 2011. "Dividend policy," MPRA Paper 44382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Canil, Jean, 2017. "Non-dividend protected executive options and dividend policy: Evidence from SFAS 123R," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 15-33.
    18. Céline Du Boys, 2006. "Pay out policy decisions in France A managerial perspective," Post-Print hal-02057673, HAL.
    19. Alpa Dhanani, 2005. "Corporate Dividend Policy: The Views of British Financial Managers," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7‐8), pages 1625-1672, September.
    20. Nie, Jing & Yin, Libo, 2022. "Do dividends signal safety? Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    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:acctfi:v:60:y:2020:i:s1:p:1007-1022. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaanzea.html .

    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.