The Effect of Fiduciary Standards on Institutions' Preference for Dividend‐Paying Stocks
研究发现，1990年代美国多数州将受托责任标准从“审慎人”改为更宽松的“审慎投资者”规则后，机构投资者对派息股票的持有比例下降了2%至3%，表明资产定价和公司治理研究不应再假设机构投资者偏好派息股票。
Many researchers apparently believe that some institutional investors prefer dividend‐paying stocks because they are subject to the “prudent man” (PM) standard of fiduciary responsibility, under which dividend payments provide prima facie evidence that an investment is prudent. Although this was once accurate for many institutions, during the 1990s most states replaced the PM standard with the less‐stringent “prudent investor” (PI) rule, which evaluates the appropriateness of each investment in a portfolio context. Controlling for the general decline in dividend‐paying stocks, we find that institutions reduced their holdings of dividend‐paying stocks by 2% to 3% as the PI standard spread during the 1990s. Studies of asset pricing and corporate governance should no longer consider dividend payments when evaluating the actions of institutional investors.