A Study on the Reasons for Dividend Policy Change and the Content of Dividend Information

• Main Authors: Wei-ching Chang, 張偉青
• Other Authors: Yi-chen Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/56643259650001111131

碩士 === 南華大學 === 財務金融學系財務管理碩士班 === 100 === 　　Recently, the economic growth of Taiwan and many other countries has increasingly slowed down, which makes many conservative investors shift their focus on enterprises’ dividend policy. From 1990 to 2010, enterprises gradually pay cash dividends instead of stock dividends. Thus, this study attempts to examine the reasons for this phenomenon. This study adopts the samples of listed companies in Taiwan from 1990 to 2010 in order to investigate and contrast different dividend policy trends of different industries. Moreover, based on the causes of dividend policy changes found in the past literature, this study further utilizes the approach of case study and depth interview by which we can have in-depth interviews with the executive of several enterprises. With this effort, this study aims to investigate the variables affecting the reasons for dividend policy change. Finally, with the event study method, this study further verifies the influence of the dividend information content resulting from contiguous dividend increase and reduction on the market. From the perspective of dividends,the empirical results reveal that the abnormal return rate will be positive on the announcement day if there are four consecutive years of dividend increase.In contrast, the abnormal return rate will be negative on the day before the announcement day if there are four consecutive years of dividend reduction. Therefore, the effect of information content is proved to exist on the market.