Dividend Smoothing and Firm Valuation
研究了21个国家中股利平滑与公司估值的关系，发现高平滑公司的股利资本化价值显著更高，且在股东保护较弱的国家平滑溢价更大，支持平滑作为降低代理成本的机制。
Abstract We examine the relationship between dividend smoothing and firm valuation across 21 countries using several empirical methods and smoothing measures. Our main results show that dividends are capitalized at significantly larger values for high-smoothing firms than for low-smoothing firms. We also find that dividend-smoothing premiums are higher in countries with weak shareholder protection – suggesting that smoothing serves as a substitute mechanism to reduce agency costs. Overall, our findings support the view that managers use dividend smoothing predominantly as a bonding mechanism to reduce agency costs (Leary and Michaely (2011)), and not as a rent extraction mechanism (Lambrecht and Myers (2012)).