Corporate governance, life cycle, and payout precommitment: An emerging market study
研究了新兴市场公司治理如何影响支付承诺政策，发现只有治理良好的公司会通过高股利和债务偿还来承诺，且存在生命周期效应，成长和成熟期公司更倾向使用债务和股利。
Abstract We analyze the role of firm‐level corporate governance in determining the precommitment payout policy of emerging market firms and investigate whether there is a precommitment life‐cycle effect. Unlike previous studies of U.S. firms, we find evidence of precommitment only among relatively well‐governed firms, which combine good governance with large dividend payouts to shareholders and large debt‐related repayments to creditors. We also document a strong precommitment life‐cycle effect. Firms in the growth and mature stages of their life cycle tend to use both debt and dividends to precommit to investors, with an increasing proportion of dividends in total payout measures. Our results are robust to an array of control variables, alternate payout proxies, market setting, and firm‐level corporate governance, and it addresses potential endogeneity concerns in the sample.