An Research On Chinese Listed Company Dividend Policy:behavioral Perspective

“Chinese style dividend puzzle” is always a debatable topic in the world ofacademic and practice,China Securities Regulatory Commission devotes to invokelisted company’s willingness of dividend payment and raise the level of dividendpayment for decades. Main strain researchers who study dividend policy focus on taxdifference, information asymmetry, principle-agency conflict,attribute the differencebetween Chinese listed company’s dividend policy behavior and their westerncounterpart to Chinese special institutional arrangement. They seldom think of thehypothesis of rational man,ignoring the influence of man’s behavioral bias ondividend policy. Behavioral school who study the dividend policy has develop anpreliminary research framework, but they haven’t enrich and consummate it. Basedon this background, this dissertation use the methodology and viewpoint ofreliterature concerned for reference, considering the Chinese institutionalbackground,study on the Chinese listed company’s low propensity and level to paydividend through investor’s heterogeneous belief and managerial over-confidence.Firstly, incorporating investor’s heterogeneous belief and managerialoverconfidence to divend catering theory,their influence mechanism on listedcompany’s dividend policy decision is studied. A model is constructed to demonstratethe negative relationship between dividend per share and investor’s heterogeneousbelief.The later comes from the ratio of information about company clear cost, shareholding, risk, tax, investment premium.Dividend payment is negatively associatedwith them. Dividend payment propensity depends on dividend premium which hasnegatively related to managerial overconfidence.This dissertation explores therelationship between dividend payment propensity and managerial overconfidence asmanager has optimistic and pessimistic with economic situation.Secondly,this dissertation empirically study investor’s heterogeneous belief’sinfluence on listed company’s dividend policy.Using multivariable probit model,analyst forcast disagreement,adjusted turnover ratio,excess return ratio as the proxy variable for investor’s heterogeneous belief,it is found that controlling for companysize,earning ability,growth,leverage,share concerntration and tradable share ratio,thelarger the investor’s heterogeneous belief;the lower probability of company’sdividend payment.this result supports for behavioral hypothesis,those controllingvariable’s symbolic supports information hypothesis and managerial cateringhypothesis,but is not sure of supporting agent hypothesis.Thirdly, the dividend payment propensity is empirical studied using survivalanalysis and Cox proportional hazard model, although the incidence ratio of Shanghaiand Shenzhen listed company is near, their payment character is difference,company’s age and listed address can explain the dividend payment willingness. mainbusiness income, quick ratio, institutional share ratio, industrial dividend level, returnon equity, equity per share obviously raise the hazard ratio of dividend payment.financial leverage,Shareholders’ equity ratio reciprocal,earning per share,price earningratio reduce the hazard ratio of dividend payment,but that is not obvious, they don’thave net effect.Thirdly, managerial overconfidence’s influence on listed company’s dividendpayment willingness and level is studied,Using manager’s option exercise situation tojudge managerial overconfidence, the influence effect is explored in logic model, it isfound that listed company dividend payment willingness is negatively related tomanagerial overconfidence.Under such circumstance,listed company with low cashflow and growth opportunity has lower probability to pay, the increasing independentdirector number can raise the probability to pay, but it’s combination effect withcashflow is not obvious.Fourthly, listed company dividend payment level is studied in a Tobit model.Using managerial earning forcast as proxy variable for managerial overconfidence, itis found that managerial overconfidence is negatively related to dividend paymentlevel. Based on managerial discretion theory,this dissertation studies five factor thatmay have impact on the relationship between managerial overconfidence and listedcompany dividend payment. managerial duality and cashflow will strengthen it,stateownership and political appointment will weaken it. In conclusion, this dissertation try to demonstrate that: investor’s heterogeneousbelief and managerial overconfidence can explain Chinese listed company’slong-term low dividend payment willingness and level. That is to say, exceptstraditional factor, behavioral factor is also important, through this view canunderstand Chinese company’s long-term low dividend payment willingness andlevel.