An Empirical Study On The Relationship Of Ownership Structure And Cash Dividend Policy Of Listed Companies In China

The dividend policy is one of the important links in the modern corporate financial decisions. The research on dividend policy is being paid attention. So far, the dividend policy has already become the corporate governance problem from the financial decisions. It is regarded as the benefit balance between the majority shareholders, the minority shareholders and other stakeholders. The ownership structure, a foundation question in corporate governance, is the key factor which makes the different rights between shareholders, the minority shareholders and other stakeholders. Therefore, this paper gives the relationship of ownership structure and cash dividend policy of listed companies in China.Based on the proxy theory and the tunneling hypothesis, the paper reviewed the western dividend policy theories first, and described the present situations in cash dividend policy and ownership structure of listed companies in China. Through an empirical study, the paper draws the conclusions: the shares of the controlling majority shareholders have the positive relationship with payout ratio in decentralized ownerships; the shares of the first majority shareholder and payout ratio show "U" and the other majority shareholders have an opposite performance in concentrated ownerships; the other majority shareholders prefer to supervise rather than ally the first majority shareholder in modestly concentrated ownerships; non-circulation shares represented by state shares and corporation shares have the positive relationship with payout ratio, circulation shares and institutional investor shares have an opposite performance. Moreover, the modestly concentrated ownerships have the stablest cash dividend policy by Lintner's dividend model.In the end, the paper gives some suggestions about improving internal structure and strengthening exterior restraint mechanism.