Corporate Dividend Policies: Lessons from Private Firms
比较上市公司和私营企业的股利政策，发现私营企业平滑股利程度更低，说明公开资本市场的监督是股利平滑的关键因素；上市公司股利更高且对投资机会更敏感。
We compare the dividend policies of publicly and privately held firms in order to help identify the forces shaping corporate dividends, and shed light on the behavior of privately held companies. We show that private firms smooth dividends significantly less than their public counterparts, suggesting that the scrutiny of public capital markets plays a central role in the propensity of firms to smooth dividends over time. Public firms pay relatively higher dividends that tend to be more sensitive to changes in investment opportunities than otherwise similar private firms. Ultimately, ownership structure and incentives play key roles in shaping dividend policies. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.