IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/7266.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Potential dividends and actual cash flows. Theoretical and empirical reasons for using ‘actual’ and dismissing ‘potential’, Or: How not to pull potential rabbits out of actual hats

Author

Listed:
  • Vélez-Pareja, Ignacio
  • Magni, Carlo Alberto

Abstract

Practitioners and academics in valuation include changes in liquid assets (potential dividends) in the cash flows. This widespread and wrong practice is inconsistent with basic finance theory. We present economic, theoretical, and empirical arguments to support the thesis. Economic arguments underline that only flows of cash should be considered for valuation; theoretical arguments show how potential dividends lead to contradiction and to arbitrage losses. Empirical arguments, from recent studies, suggest that investors discount potential dividends with high discount rates, which means that changes in liquid assets are not value drivers. Hence, when valuing cash flows, we should consider only actual payments.

Suggested Citation

  • Vélez-Pareja, Ignacio & Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2008. "Potential dividends and actual cash flows. Theoretical and empirical reasons for using ‘actual’ and dismissing ‘potential’, Or: How not to pull potential rabbits out of actual hats," MPRA Paper 7266, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:7266
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7266/1/MPRA_paper_7266.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7703/1/MPRA_paper_7703.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard S Ruback, 2002. "Capital Cash Flows: A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Cash Flows," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 31(2), Summer.
    2. James E. Smith & Robert F. Nau, 1995. "Valuing Risky Projects: Option Pricing Theory and Decision Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(5), pages 795-816, May.
    3. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2007. "Relevance or irrelevance of retention for dividend policy irrelevance," MPRA Paper 5591, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. Stephen H. Penman & Theodore Sougiannis, 1998. "A Comparison of Dividend, Cash Flow, and Earnings Approaches to Equity Valuation," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 343-383, September.
    6. Tham, Joseph & Velez-Pareja, Ignacio, 2004. "Principles of Cash Flow Valuation," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780126860405.
    7. 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.
    8. Lee Pinkowitz & Rohan Williamson & René M. Stulz, 2007. "Cash Holdings, Dividend Policy, and Corporate Governance: A Cross‐Country Analysis," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 19(1), pages 81-87, January.
    9. Lee Pinkowitz & Rene M. Stulz & Rohan Williamson, 2003. "Do Firms in Countries with Poor Protection of Investor Rights Hold More Cash?," NBER Working Papers 10188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Varian, Hal R, 1987. "The Arbitrage Principle in Financial Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 55-72, Fall.
    11. Harry DeAngelo & Linda DeAngelo, 2007. "Payout Policy Pedagogy: What Matters and Why," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(1), pages 11-27, January.
    12. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda, 2006. "The irrelevance of the MM dividend irrelevance theorem," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 293-315, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Magni, Carlo Alberto & Vélez-Pareja, Ignacio, 2009. "Potential dividends versus actual cash flows in firm valuation," MPRA Paper 14509, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2016. "Capital depreciation and the underdetermination of rate of return: A unifying perspective," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 54-79.
    3. Maria Elisabete Duante Neves, 2017. "Payout and Firm's Catering," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(4), pages 104-132.
    4. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2010. "Residual income and value creation: An investigation into the lost-capital paradigm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(2), pages 505-519, March.
    5. repec:ers:journl:v:v:y:2017:i:4:p:104-132 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. von Eije, Henk & Megginson, William L., 2008. "Dividends and share repurchases in the European Union," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 347-374, August.
    7. Karpavičius, Sigitas & Yu, Fan, 2018. "Dividend premium: Are dividend-paying stocks worth more?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 112-126.
    8. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2009. "Splitting up value: A critical review of residual income theories," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(1), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Renneboog, Luc & Szilagyi, Peter G., 2020. "How relevant is dividend policy under low shareholder protection?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    10. Beyer, Brooke & Downes, Jimmy & Rapley, Eric T., 2017. "Internal capital market inefficiencies, shareholder payout, and abnormal leverage," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 39-57.
    11. 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.
    12. Jacob, Martin & Alstadsæter, Annette, 2013. "Payout policies of privately held firms: Flexibility and the role of income taxes," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 152, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    13. ElBannan, Mona A., 2020. "Does catering behavior persist? Evidence on dividend sentiment in emerging financial markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 350-373.
    14. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Denis, David J. & Osobov, Igor, 2008. "Why do firms pay dividends? International evidence on the determinants of dividend policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 62-82, July.
    17. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2007. "Relevance or irrelevance of retention for dividend policy irrelevance," MPRA Paper 5591, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Jeffrey J. Coulton & Caitlin M. S. Ruddock & Stephen L. Taylor, 2014. "The Informativeness of Dividends and Associated Tax Credits," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(9-10), pages 1309-1336, November.
    19. Caliskan, Deren & Doukas, John A., 2015. "CEO risk preferences and dividend policy decisions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 18-42.
    20. Jeffrey J. Coulton & Caitlin Ruddock, 2011. "Corporate payout policy in Australia and a test of the life‐cycle theory," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 51(2), pages 381-407, June.
    21. Colin Clubb & Martin Walker, 2014. "Payout Policy Relevance and Accounting-based Valuation," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 50(4), pages 490-516, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cash flows; cash flow to equity; free cash flow; liquid assets; potential dividends; firm value; equity value; Modigliani and Miller; levered value; error in valuation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics

    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:pra:mprapa:7266. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.