IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12146.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Investment Taxes and Equity Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Clemens Sialm

Abstract

This paper investigates whether investors are compensated for the tax burden of equity securities. Effective tax rates on equity securities vary due to frequent tax reforms and due to persistent differences in propensities to pay dividends. The paper finds an economically and statistically significant relationship between risk-adjusted stock returns and effective personal tax rates using a new data set covering tax burdens on a cross-section of equity securities between 1927 and 2004. Consistent with tax capitalization, stocks facing higher effective tax rates tend to compensate taxable investors by generating higher before-tax returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Clemens Sialm, 2006. "Investment Taxes and Equity Returns," NBER Working Papers 12146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12146
    Note: AP CF PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    2. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1994. "Contrarian Investment, Extrapolation, and Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1541-1578, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Martin Feldstein & Joel Slemrod & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1980. "The Effects of Taxation on the Selling of Corporate Stock and the Realization of Capital Gains," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(4), pages 777-791.
    5. Miller, Merton H. & Scholes, Myron S., 1978. "Dividends and taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 333-364, December.
    6. Roger H. Gordon & David F. Bradford, 1980. "Taxation and the Stock Market Valuation of Capital Gains and Dividends: Theory and Empirical Results," NBER Chapters, in: Econometric Studies in Public Finance, pages 109-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Eades, Kenneth M. & Hess, Patrick J. & Kim, E. Han, 1984. "On interpreting security returns during the ex-dividend period," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 3-34, March.
    8. Chen, Nai-Fu & Grundy, Bruce & Stambaugh, Robert F, 1990. "Changing Risk, Changing Risk Premiums, and Dividend Yield Effects," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 51-70, January.
    9. Blume, Marshall E, 1980. "Stock Returns and Dividend Yields: Some More Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(4), pages 567-577, November.
    10. Zoran Ivković & James Poterba & Scott Weisbenner, 2005. "Tax-Motivated Trading by Individual Investors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1605-1630, December.
    11. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1983. "Some aspects of the taxation of capital gains," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 257-294, July.
    12. Joan Farre-Mensa & Roni Michaely & Martin Schmalz, 2014. "Payout Policy," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 75-134, December.
    13. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    14. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
    15. Ravi Jagannathan & Yong Wang, 2007. "Lazy Investors, Discretionary Consumption, and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1623-1661, August.
    16. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Taxes, Regulations, and the Value of U.S. and U.K. Corporations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 767-796.
    17. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    18. John R. Graham & Roni Michaely & Michael R. Roberts, 2003. "Do Price Discreteness and Transactions Costs Affect Stock Returns? Comparing Ex‐Dividend Pricing before and after Decimalization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2611-2636, December.
    19. George M. CONSTANTINIDES & Jonathan E. INGERSOLL Jr., 2005. "Optimal Bond Trading With Personal Taxes," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 6, pages 165-206, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    21. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1125-1165 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Litzenberger, Robert H & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1982. "The Effects of Dividends on Common Stock Prices: Tax Effects or Information Effects?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 429-443, May.
    23. Gene Amromin & Paul Harrison & Steven Sharpe, 2008. "How Did the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut Affect Stock Prices?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 625-646, December.
    24. Clemens Sialm, 2005. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing: Time-Series Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. James M. Poterba, 1986. "How Burdensome are Capital Gains Taxes?," NBER Working Papers 1871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1, March.
    27. Miller, Merton H & Scholes, Myron S, 1982. "Dividends and Taxes: Some Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1118-1141, December.
    28. Frank, Murray & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1998. "Why do stock prices drop by less than the value of the dividend? Evidence from a country without taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 161-188, February.
    29. Litzenberger, Robert H & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1980. "Dividends, Short Selling Restrictions, Tax-Induced Investor Clienteles and Market Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 469-482, May.
    30. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1984. "New Evidence that Taxes Affect the Valuation of Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(5), pages 1397-1415, December.
    31. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    32. Franklin Allen & Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2000. "A Theory of Dividends Based on Tax Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2499-2536, December.
    33. Litzenberger, Robert H. & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1979. "The effect of personal taxes and dividends on capital asset prices : Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 163-195, June.
    34. 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.
    35. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron, 1974. "The effects of dividend yield and dividend policy on common stock prices and returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, May.
    36. Auerbach, Alan J., 2002. "Taxation and corporate financial policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 19, pages 1251-1292, Elsevier.
    37. Daniel Feenberg & Elisabeth Coutts, 1993. "An introduction to the TAXSIM model," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 189-194.
    38. 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.
    39. 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.
    40. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Christopher R. Blake, 2005. "Marginal Stockholder Tax Effects and Ex-Dividend-Day Price Behavior: Evidence From Taxable Versus Nontaxable Closed-End Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 579-586, August.
    41. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    42. Bali, Rakesh & Hite, Gailen L., 1998. "Ex dividend day stock price behavior: discreteness or tax-induced clienteles?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 127-159, February.
    43. Constantinides, George M, 1983. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Personal Tax," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(3), pages 611-636, May.
    44. James M. Poterba, 1987. "Tax Policy and Corporate Saving," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(2), pages 455-516.
    45. Yaniv Grinstein & Roni Michaely, 2005. "Institutional Holdings and Payout Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1389-1426, June.
    46. Eades, Kenneth M & Hess, Patrick J & Kim, E Han, 1994. "Time-Series Variation in Dividend Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1617-1638, December.
    47. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 2, March.
    48. Green, Richard C. & Rydqvist, Kristian, 1999. "Ex-day behavior with dividend preference and limitations to short-term arbitrage: the case of Swedish lottery bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 145-187, August.
    49. Wang, Junbo & Wu, Chunchi & Zhang, Frank X., 2008. "Liquidity, default, taxes, and yields on municipal bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1133-1149, June.
    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. Amromin, Gene & Huang, Jennifer & Sialm, Clemens, 2007. "The tradeoff between mortgage prepayments and tax-deferred retirement savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(10), pages 2014-2040, November.

    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. Clemens Sialm, 2005. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing: Time-Series Evidence," NBER Working Papers 11756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Clemens Sialm, 2009. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1356-1383, September.
    3. Hartzmark, Samuel M. & Solomon, David H., 2013. "The dividend month premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 640-660.
    4. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    5. Poterba, James M., 2002. "Taxation, risk-taking, and household portfolio behavior," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 1109-1171, Elsevier.
    6. William M. Getry & Deen Kemsley & Christopher J. Mayer, 2003. "Dividend Taxes and Share Prices: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 261-282, February.
    7. Bell, L. & Jenkinson, T., 2000. "New Evidence of the Impact of Dividend Taxation and on the Identity of the Marginal Investor," Economics Series Working Papers 9924, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Dahlquist, Magnus & Robertsson, Göran & Rydqvist, Kristian, 2014. "Direct evidence of dividend tax clienteles," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-12.
    9. Lee, Yi-Tsung & Liu, Yu-Jane & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2006. "Taxes and dividend clientele: Evidence from trading and ownership structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 229-246, January.
    10. Trevor S. Harris & R. Glenn Hubbard & Deen Kemsley, 1999. "The Share Price Effects of Dividend Taxes and Tax Imputation Credits," NBER Working Papers 7445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Randall Morck, 2003. "Why Some Double Taxation Might Make Sense: The Special Case of Inter-corporate Dividends," NBER Working Papers 9651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Hanlon, Michelle & Myers, James N. & Shevlin, Terry, 2003. "Dividend taxes and firm valuation:: a re-examination," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 119-153, June.
    13. Allaudeen Hameed & Jing Xie & Yuxiang Zhong, 2024. "Preferences for dividends and stock returns around the world," Working Papers 202405, University of Macau, Faculty of Business Administration.
    14. 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.
    15. Fuller, Kathleen P. & Goldstein, Michael A., 2011. "Do dividends matter more in declining markets?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 457-473, June.
    16. Harris, Trevor S. & Hubbard, R. Glenn & Kemsley, Deen, 2001. "The share price effects of dividend taxes and tax imputation credits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 569-596, March.
    17. Fazakas, Gergely & Kosárka, Judit, 2008. "Osztalékpolitikai elméletek [Dividend policy theories]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 782-806.
    18. Vassilis A. Efthymiou & George N. Leledakis, 2014. "The price impact of the disposition effect on the ex-dividend day of NYSE and AMEX common stocks," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 711-724, April.
    19. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2002. "Dividend Policy inside the Firm," NBER Working Papers 8698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Philip Brown & Alex Clarke, 1993. "The Ex-Dividend Day Behaviour of Australian Share Prices Before and After Dividend Imputation," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 18(1), pages 1-40, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:12146. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.