Local peer influence on dividend payout decisions
研究了美国上市公司股息支付决策如何受本地同行股息政策的影响，发现增发和减发股息均受同城公司影响，且该效应在零售投资者、机构税收和代理成本客户群更集中的地区更显著。
Using a large sample of US-listed firms, we examine how firms’ dividend payout decisions are influenced by the dividend policies of their local peers. We find that the decisions to increase and decrease dividends are both influenced by the payout choices of firms headquartered in the same locality. We show that local peer effects are driven by the desire to compete for local dividend clineteles, with local peer effects proving more pronounced in geographies with greater retail investors clienteles, institutional-tax clienteles, and agency-cost clienteles. In contrast to dividends, share repurchases are not influenced by local peer repurchase decisions. Our findings prove robust to various sampling methods, peer portfolios, model specifications, and estimation techniques.