Dividend payouts under a societal crisis: Financial constraints or signaling?

Shangkun Liang, Yuhao Niu, Dan Yang and Xuejuan Liu

International Review of Financial Analysis, 2023, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: Dividend payouts of Chinese firms are typically flexible and unstable, and firms have leeway to change dividends in response to a crisis. Using this setting, we document that Chinese listed firms tend to decrease dividend payouts under the coronavirus crisis, supporting our financial constraints hypothesis instead of the alternative dividend signaling hypothesis. The baseline result is robust to a series of sensitivity checks. Underlying mechanism tests show that the negative effect of COVID-19 on dividend policies is enhanced in high-constrained groups compared to that in low-constrained groups. Further analysis of crisis-related factors reveals that the main result is enhanced when firms engage in international diversification, when firms have greater labor intensity and when firms are nonstate-owned.

Keywords: Dividend payouts; Societal crisis; COVID-19; Coronavirus; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G35 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:88:y:2023:i:c:s1057521923002211

DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2023.102705

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