An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Cash Dividend Policy On Corporate Performance

The theory of dividend policy is an enduring topic in corporate finance,which has been explored in depth by many scholars since the 1960s,eventually giving rise to MM theory,signaling theory and dividend agency theory,among others.In China,in order to maintain the orderly development of the capital market,the Securities Regulatory Commission and other regulatory authorities have promulgated a number of policies to encourage corporate dividends in recent years(New Securities Law,Regulatory Guideline No.3,etc.)and cash dividends have become the main distribution method.When the issue of cash dividends is elevated to a dynamic category,it gives rise to reflections on the issue of dividend distribution.Compared with the main board,GEM has unique corporate characteristics(high-tech,private/family-owned enterprises,etc.)while its higher market expectations eventually need to be absorbed by fundamental performance,so this thesis attempts to explore out the impact of cash dividend policy on corporate performance in dynamic adjustment.From the existing studies,most of the studies on cash dividends in GEM in recent years have focused on aspects such as institutional nature,financial characteristics,or analysis of individual listed companies.This thesis,on the other hand,focuses on the adjustment process of dividend distribution methods of GEM listed companies based on a dynamic perspective,with a view to providing new research ideas on the dividend distribution of GEM listed companies in China.This thesis takes a real-life event(Liu Shiyu’s "shouting about the high dividend distribution scheme" in 2017)as a marker node,focuses on the GEM market,studies the impact of cash dividends on corporate performance in segments,and tries to introduce an intermediary mechanism to explore the correlation between agency costs,cash dividends,and corporate performance.This thesis selects the annual data of GEM listed companies from 2009-2021 as the data sample for empirical analysis and adopts multiple linear regression and mediating variable effect model to empirically analyze the relationship between cash dividends,agency costs and corporate performance,and draws the following conclusions:ⅰ.The coefficients of cash dividends before and after the event node are positive and significant at the 1%level,indicating that cash dividends have a positive effect on corporate performance;ⅱ.Before the event node,the coefficient of agency cost is positive and significant at the 1%level,indicating that cash dividends have a positive effect on agency cost;ⅲ.After the event node,after considering agency cost,agency cost and cash dividends both have a significant positive effect on firm performance,indicating that agency cost is a mediating channel for the effect of cash dividends on firm performance,and the higher the agency cost,the the lower the impact of cash dividends on corporate performance;fourth,after the event node,with the continuous improvement of cash dividend policy and its implementation in the system of GEM listed companies,the gap between the return on net assets index and corporate performance has been improved to a great extent,which also confirms the positive impact of cash dividends on corporate development.