IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jfr/ijba11/v6y2015i2p1-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dividend Policy Responses to Deregulation in the Electric Utility Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Julia D¡¯Souza
  • John Jacob
  • Veronda F. Willis

Abstract

This paper investigates changes in electric utilities¡¯ dividend policies following the onset of deregulation. Consistent with the theory of dividend clienteles, we find that utilities continue to pay high dividends after the onset of deregulation. Under a regulated regime, we find no systematic pattern of associations between dividend changes and abnormal stock returns or future earnings changes. Post-deregulation, however, we find that, consistent with prior research on unregulated firms, dividend increases (decreases) are viewed by the market as good (bad) news. When we examine earnings following changes in dividends, we do not find evidence in favor of the dividend signaling theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Julia D¡¯Souza & John Jacob & Veronda F. Willis, 2015. "Dividend Policy Responses to Deregulation in the Electric Utility Industry," International Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press, vol. 6(2), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:jfr:ijba11:v:6:y:2015:i:2:p:1-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijba/article/view/6527/3878
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijba/article/view/6527
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Watts, Ross L., 1992. "The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-292, December.
    3. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 1988. "Earnings information conveyed by dividend initiations and omissions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 149-175, September.
    4. Eugene F. Fama, 2002. "Testing Trade-Off and Pecking Order Predictions About Dividends and Debt," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    5. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2006. "On the Accuracy of Different Measures of q," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 35(3), pages 5-33, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Doron Nissim & Amir Ziv, 2001. "Dividend Changes and Future Profitability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2111-2133, December.
    8. Smith, Clifford Jr., 1986. "Investment banking and the capital acquisition process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 3-29.
    9. Watts, Ross, 1973. "The Information Content of Dividends," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 191-211, April.
    10. 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.
    11. Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely & Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 2005. "Dividend Changes Do Not Signal Changes in Future Profitability," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(5), pages 1659-1682, September.
    12. Johnson, Mark S. & Niles, Marcia S. & Suydam, Stacey L., 1998. "Regulatory changes in the electric utility industry: Investigation of effects on shareholder wealth," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4-5), pages 285-309.
    13. Miller, Merton H & Rock, Kevin, 1985. "Dividend Policy under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1031-1051, September.
    14. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J, 1970. "Marginal Stockholder Tax Rates and the Clientele Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(1), pages 68-74, February.
    15. Ronald C. Lease, & Kose John, & Avner Kalay, & Uri Loewenstein, & Oded H. Sarig,, 1999. "Dividend Policy:: Its Impact on Firm Value," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780875844978.
    16. John R. Graham & Alok Kumar, 2006. "Do Dividend Clienteles Exist? Evidence on Dividend Preferences of Retail Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1305-1336, June.
    17. Jensen, Gerald R. & Solberg, Donald P. & Zorn, Thomas S., 1992. "Simultaneous Determination of Insider Ownership, Debt, and Dividend Policies," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 247-263, June.
    18. John, Kose & Lang, Larry H P, 1991. "Insider Trading around Dividend Announcements: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1361-1389, September.
    19. 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.
    20. Robert S. Hansen & Raman Kumar & Dilip K. Shome, 1994. "Dividend Policy and Corporate Monitoring: Evidence from the Regulated Electric Utility Industry," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 23(1), Spring.
    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. Salvador Bertomeu & Antonio Estache, 2019. "Should Infrastructure Regulators regulate Dividends? Hints from a Literature Survey," Working Papers ECARES 2019-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    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. 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.
    2. du Jardin, Philippe & Séverin, Eric, 2011. "Dividend policy," MPRA Paper 44382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. James, Hui & Benson, Bradley W. & Wu, Chen (Ken), 2017. "Does CEO ownership affect payout policy? Evidence from using CEO scaled wealth-performance sensitivity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 328-345.
    4. Stuart Archbold & Elisabete F. Simões Vieira, 2010. "Corporate Dividend Policies in Bank-based and Market-based Systems: Survey Evidence from UK and Portugal," Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, vol. 0(1), pages 34-64.
    5. Fairchild, Richard & Guney, Yilmaz & Thanatawee, Yordying, 2014. "Corporate dividend policy in Thailand: Theory and evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 129-151.
    6. Jianan Guo, 2016. "Ultimate Controlling Shareholders and Dividend Payout Policy in Chinese Stock Market," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(02), pages 1-35, June.
    7. Carlos Martins, 2007. "Consistency of Dividend Signalling and Future Maturity Level:Evidence from UK Data," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 40, Departamento de Economia, Gestão e Engenharia Industrial, Universidade de Aveiro.
    8. Baker, H. Kent & Powell, Gary E. & Veit, E. Theodore, 2002. "Revisiting the dividend puzzle: Do all of the pieces now fit?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 241-261.
    9. Darren K. Hayunga & Clifford P. Stephens, 2009. "Dividend behaviour of US equity REITs," Journal of Property Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 105-123, September.
    10. Enrico Onali, 2014. "Moral Hazard, Dividends, and Risk in Banks," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1-2), pages 128-155, January.
    11. Booth, Laurence & Zhou, Jun, 2017. "Dividend policy: A selective review of results from around the world," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-15.
    12. Ashiq Ali & Oktay Urcan, 2012. "Dividend increases and future earnings," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 12-25.
    13. Chin-Sheng Huang & Chun-Fan You & Hsiao-Fen Hsiao, 2017. "Dividends and Subsequent Profitability: An Examination of a Dual Dividend Stock Market," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(01), pages 1-35, March.
    14. De Cesari, Amedeo & Huang-Meier, Winifred, 2015. "Dividend changes and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-17.
    15. 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.
    16. Małgorzata Snarska & Tomasz K. Wisniewski & Andrzej Zygula, 2020. "Are Emerging Markets Efficient? Evidence from Informational Content of Dividend Changes in Polish Stock Market," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 687-717.
    17. Jie He & Xuan Tian & Huan Yang & Luo Zuo, 2020. "Asymmetric Cost Behavior and Dividend Policy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 989-1021, September.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Erhan Kilincarslan, 2018. "The Factors Determining the Dividend Policy of Financial Firms Listed on the Borsa Istanbul," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 75-109.

    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:jfr:ijba11:v:6:y:2015:i:2:p:1-16. 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: Jenny Zhang (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://ijba.sciedupress.com .

    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.