Essays on corporate dividend policy: International investigation at the micro and macro levels

The dissertation attempts to provide comparative and comprehensive understanding of the corporate dividend policy at both the micro and macro levels in various countries. It consists of three different essays. Essays I and II are focused at micro level, while essay III is a macro level analysis.; Essay I compares corporate dividend behavioral models across six different countries: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. The major findings are that (1) consistent with Lintner's original findings, firms tend to pay stable dividends on the basis of a target dividend payment in all the sample countries except Hong Kong; (2) firms in France, Hong Kong, and the U.K. adjust their dividends to changes in earnings more quickly than do firms in Germany, Japan, and the U.S.; and (3) the hybrid dividend model provides a more comprehensive explanation of a firm's stable dividend payments and dividend cuts when the firm's current earnings are increased.; Essay II investigates why firms in different countries have established different dividend policies using firm-level data from Australia, France, the U.K., and the U.S. The major findings are that (1) an explanation of different dividend policies across countries requires not only consideration of various dividend determinants but also their joint impacts; (2) there are significant differences in dividend policies, institutional factors, and financial structures across countries; and (3) the different dividend polices across countries can be explained by differences in both institutional factors and financial structures across the countries.; Essay III examines the stability of dividend rankings and country factors affecting dividend policies across sixteen emerging and five developed stock-market countries. The major findings are that (1) nations with relatively higher dividends at one point in time consistently tend to pay relatively higher dividends over time; (2) stock-markets in different countries face different country-specific factors, which lead firms to establish different dividend policies; and (3) differences in market information and market liquidity account for much of differences in dividend policies across countries.