Does dividend smoothing also smooth-out bad news release? Evidence from stock price crash risk
研究了股利平滑化是否会加剧企业隐藏坏消息，从而增加未来股价崩盘风险。基于30个经济体1987-2018年的大样本，发现股利平滑化确实放大了崩盘风险，且这一效应在股东保护较弱或制度质量较低的经济体中更为显著。
Abstract This paper investigates whether dividend smoothing will exacerbate firms’ bad news hoarding and increase their future stock price crash risk. By employing a large sample from 30 economies during the period 1987–2018, we find that dividend smoothing amplifies firms’ crash risk. This effect is robust after addressing potential endogeneity issues, using stricter fixed effects models, difference-in-differences estimation, and two-stage least squares regressions. We find that dividend smoothing amplifies future crash risk because it increases the level of information asymmetry between managers and investors. In addition, this effect is more pronounced in economies with weaker shareholder protection or lower institutional quality.