The Effect of Financial Flexibility on Payout Policy
利用房地产价格变动作为企业债务能力的外生冲击，研究发现财务灵活性提高会带来更高的股利、股票回购和支付灵活性，且对投资机会少的企业影响更强。
We use variation in real estate prices as exogenous shocks to firms’ debt capacity to study the causal effect of financial flexibility on payout policy. We show that an increase in financial flexibility results in higher dividends, share repurchases, and payout flexibility. We find that a 1-standard-deviation increase in a firms’ collateral value results in 0.26- and 0.55-percentage-point increases in nondiscretionary and discretionary payouts, respectively. This effect is stronger for firms with few investment opportunities. Moreover, highly leveraged firms are more likely to cut dividends in response to a sharp decrease in their financial flexibility.