Cost Structure and Payout Policy
研究发现固定成本占比高的企业未来现金流波动更大，因此支付更少的股利和回购，且更倾向于用股票回购来保持灵活性。
I investigate the effects of firms’ proportion of fixed and variable costs on their payout policy and find that firms with higher fixed costs have significantly higher volatility in their future cash flows and more variable future operating incomes. These firms pay a lower fraction of their operating income in dividends and share repurchases. Finally, these firms return higher fractions of their payouts via share repurchases because this method offers greater flexibility. The results are robust to several alternate specifications and firm‐level controls, and show that firms’ cost structures play a significant role in payout policy choices.