Empirical Analysis Of Factors Affect The A-share Listed Company's Cash Dividend Policy

Based on the data about Chinese A-share listed companies over period 2001—2005,this paper investigates the factors which influence the dividend policies, such as investment opportunities, free cash flow, SOE , controlling shareholders, EPS and debt ratio etc. We develop eleven hypotheses based on overseas and home relevant researches, and do hypotheses testes with regression models to examine whether the tunneling of cash dividend which derived from the share separation phenomena of same shares same rights but different price or the free cash flow hypothesis is right. We also discuss the impact of investment opportunities and corporations'life cycle. We find that listed companies in China do support the free cash flow hypothesis while deny the tunneling hypothesis. Lastly, the paper proposes several suggestions to restrict controlling shareholders who hold un- tradable shares to enlist self- interests from tunneling of cash dividend and pay cash dividends with the position of the life cycle.