Shareholder-Manager Conflict and the Information Content of Dividends
构建了一个内部人掌握公司前景私人信息且投资内生的模型，证明存在粗信号均衡：股利将公司前景划分为宽泛区间，其变化反映非渐进式前景变动，从而解释了股利平滑、信息效应显著但预测未来盈利能力弱等经验异象。
In a model of the firm in which insiders are privately informed of the firm's prospects and investment is endogenous, this article shows the existence of coarse dividend-signaling equilibria: Dividends partition the space of possible prospects of the firm, and changes in dividends reflect "broad", or nonincremental, changes in these prospects. These equilibria are shown to exist under general preference and technology structures, and it is argued that they closely match the following "anomalous" empirical features of corporate dividend payouts: Dividend changes have nontrivial information effects, yet dividends are smoothed (in a world with cyclic prospects), and dividends are poor predictors of future earnings. Furthermore, in performing comparative statics, this article derives cross-sectional and time-series restrictions on the relation of dividend smoothing to observable firm attributes.