IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v88y2006i1p91-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dividends, Total Cash Flow to Shareholders, and Predictive Return Regressions

Author

Listed:
  • Donald Robertson

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Stephen Wright

    (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Abstract

This paper provides new evidence on the predictive power of dividend yields for U.S. aggregate stock returns. Following Miller and Modigliani, we construct a measure of the dividend yield that includes all cash flows to shareholders. We show that this alternative cash-flow yield has strong and stable predictive power for returns, and appears robust to a battery of tests that have been proposed in recent critiques of the predictability literature. © 2006 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald Robertson & Stephen Wright, 2006. "Dividends, Total Cash Flow to Shareholders, and Predictive Return Regressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(1), pages 91-99, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:88:y:2006:i:1:p:91-99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/rest.2006.88.1.91
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    6. Foster, F Douglas & Smith, Tom & Whaley, Robert E, 1997. "Assessing Goodness-of-Fit of Asset Pricing Models: The Distribution of the Maximal R-Squared," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 591-607, June.
    7. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October.
    8. Stambaugh, Robert F., 1999. "Predictive regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 375-421, December.
    9. Kirby, Chris, 1997. "Measuring the Predictable Variation in Stock and Bond Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 579-630.
    10. Amit Goyal & Ivo Welch, 2003. "Predicting the Equity Premium with Dividend Ratios," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(5), pages 639-654, May.
    11. Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Dividend Yields and Expected Stock Returns: Alternative Procedures for Inference and Measurement," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 357-386.
    12. Goetzmann, William Nelson & Jorion, Philippe, 1993. "Testing the Predictive Power of Dividend Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 663-679, June.
    13. Jacob Boudoukh & Roni Michaely & Matthew Richardson & Michael R. Roberts, 2007. "On the Importance of Measuring Payout Yield: Implications for Empirical Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 877-915, April.
    14. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Donald Robertson & Stephen Wright, 2008. "Miller and Modigliani, Predictive Return Regressions and Cointegration," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(2), pages 181-207, April.
    15. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    16. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2004. "Predicting returns with financial ratios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 209-235, November.
    17. Bossaerts, Peter & Hillion, Pierre, 1999. "Implementing Statistical Criteria to Select Return Forecasting Models: What Do We Learn?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 405-428.
    18. 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.
    19. Ackert, Lucy F & Smith, Brian F, 1993. "Stock Price Volatility, Ordinary Dividends, and Other Cash Flows to Shareholders," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1147-1160, September.
    20. Nelson, Charles R & Kim, Myung J, 1993. "Predictable Stock Returns: The Role of Small Sample Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 641-661, June.
    21. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. "Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1228, September.
    22. Stephen Wright, 2004. "Measures Of Stock Market Value And Returns For The U.S. Nonfinancial Corporate Sector, 1900–2002," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(4), pages 561-584, December.
    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. Chava, Sudheer & Gallmeyer, Michael & Park, Heungju, 2015. "Credit conditions and stock return predictability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 117-132.
    2. Chang‐Jin Kim & Cheolbeom Park, 2013. "Disappearing Dividends: Implications for the Dividend–Price Ratio and Return Predictability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 933-952, August.
    3. Ilaria Piatti & Fabio Trojani, 2020. "Dividend Growth Predictability and the Price–Dividend Ratio," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 130-158, January.
    4. Larrain, Borja & Yogo, Motohiro, 2008. "Does firm value move too much to be justified by subsequent changes in cash flow," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 200-226, January.
    5. Carmelo Giaccotto & Alain Krapl, 2014. "Good News and Bad News about Firm-Level Stock Returns of Internationally Exposed Firms," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 523-550, December.
    6. Jakob B Madsen & E Philip Davis, 2006. "Equity Prices, Productivity Growth and 'The New Economy'," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 791-811, July.
    7. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Donald Robertson & Stephen Wright, 2008. "Miller and Modigliani, Predictive Return Regressions and Cointegration," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(2), pages 181-207, April.
    8. Kwang Hun Choi & Chang‐Jin Kim & Cheolbeom Park, 2017. "Regime Shifts in Price‐Dividend Ratios and Expected Stock Returns: A Present‐Value Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(2-3), pages 417-441, March.
    9. Nebojsa Dimic & Vitaly Orlov & Janne Äijö, 2019. "Bond–Equity Yield Ratio Market Timing in Emerging Markets," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 18(1), pages 52-79, April.
    10. Park, Cheolbeom, 2010. "When does the dividend-price ratio predict stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 81-101, January.
    11. Helmut Herwartz & Malte Rengel & Fang Xu, 2016. "Local Trends in Price‐to‐Dividend Ratios—Assessment, Predictive Value, and Determinants," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(8), pages 1655-1690, December.
    12. Issam Samiri, 2021. "Macroeconomic Effects of Firms' Underspending in Times of Abundant Credit," BCAM Working Papers 2102, Birkbeck Centre for Applied Macroeconomics.
    13. Demetrios Eliades & Olaf Weeken, 2005. "The stock market and capital accumulation: an application to UK data," Bank of England working papers 251, Bank of England.
    14. Long Chen & Zhi Da & Richard Priestley, 2012. "Dividend Smoothing and Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(10), pages 1834-1853, October.

    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. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Donald Robertson & Stephen Wright, 2008. "Miller and Modigliani, Predictive Return Regressions and Cointegration," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(2), pages 181-207, April.
    2. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    3. Martin Lettau & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "Reconciling the Return Predictability Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1607-1652, July.
    4. Larrain, Borja & Yogo, Motohiro, 2008. "Does firm value move too much to be justified by subsequent changes in cash flow," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 200-226, January.
    5. Neil Kellard & John Nankervis & Fotis Papadimitriou, 2007. "Predicting the UK Equity Premium with Dividend Ratios: An Out-Of-Sample Recursive Residuals Graphical Approach," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 129, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    6. Paye, Bradley S. & Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Instability of return prediction models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 274-315, June.
    7. Chen, Long, 2009. "On the reversal of return and dividend growth predictability: A tale of two periods," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 128-151, April.
    8. Rapach, David E. & Wohar, Mark E., 2006. "In-sample vs. out-of-sample tests of stock return predictability in the context of data mining," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 231-247, March.
    9. Jank, Stephan, 2012. "Changes in the composition of publicly traded firms: Implications for the dividend-price ratio and return predictability," CFR Working Papers 12-08, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. John Powell & Jing Shi & Tom Smith & Robert Whaley, 2009. "Common Divisors, Payout Persistence, and Return Predictability," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 335-357, December.
    11. Chronopoulos, Dimitris K. & Papadimitriou, Fotios I. & Vlastakis, Nikolaos, 2018. "Information demand and stock return predictability," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 59-74.
    12. Stephan Jank, 2015. "Changes in the Composition of Publicly Traded Firms: Implications for the Dividend-Price Ratio and Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1362-1377, June.
    13. John H. Cochrane, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1533-1575, July.
    14. Jacob Boudoukh & Matthew Richardson & Robert F. Whitelaw, 2008. "The Myth of Long-Horizon Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1577-1605, July.
    15. Boudoukh, Jacob & Israel, Ronen & Richardson, Matthew, 2022. "Biases in long-horizon predictive regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 937-969.
    16. Puneet Handa, 2006. "Does Stock Return Predictability Imply Improved Asset Allocation and Performance? Evidence from the U.S. Stock Market (1954–2002)," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(5), pages 2423-2468, September.
    17. Wayne E. Ferson & Sergei Sarkissian & Timothy T. Simin, 2003. "Spurious Regressions in Financial Economics?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1393-1413, August.
    18. John Y. Campbell, 2008. "Viewpoint: Estimating the equity premium," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 1-21, February.
    19. Jiang, Fuwei & Lee, Joshua & Martin, Xiumin & Zhou, Guofu, 2019. "Manager sentiment and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 126-149.
    20. Hai Lin & Daniel Quill & Henk Berkman, 2016. "Information diffusion and the predictability of New Zealand stock market returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 56(3), pages 749-785, September.

    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:tpr:restat:v:88:y:2006:i:1:p:91-99. 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.