(A) Study of institutional ownership and dividends in the Shenzhen stock exchange

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

I investigate the relationship between institutional ownership and dividends among Chinese listed companies on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Following previous research, I classify institutional investors into two types: (1) pressure-resistant institutions, such as mutual funds, public pension funds and qualified foreign institutional investors and (2) pressure-sensitive institutions, such as securities companies, insurance companies, trusts, finance companies and banks. I hypothesize that only pressure-resistant institutions moderate agency problems by facilitating dividends and that monitoring is more intense when firms have high agency costs. First, logit regressions suggest that pressure-resistant institutional ownership has a significant positive effect on dividend payments, whereas pressure-sensitive institutional ownership does not. Second, Tobit regressions suggest that pressure-resistant institutional ownership has a significant positive effect on the amounts of dividends only when agency costs are high (as indicated by poor information disclosure ratings), whereas pressure-sensitive institutional ownership does not. My results are robust to the use of first-difference regressions and an alternative proxy for agency costs.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 논문은 선전증권거래소의 중국 상장회사의 기관 소유권과 배당금 간의 관계를 연구하였다. 이전의 연구에 근거하여 본 논문은 기관투자자를 두가지 유형으로 나누었다: (1) 압력저항기관, 예를 들어 뮤추얼 펀드, 공공연금기금과 적격외국기관투자가, (2) 압력민감기관, 예를 들어 증권회사, 보험회사, 신탁, 금융회사와 은행. 저는 압력저항기관만이 배당을 촉진하여 대리문제를 완화시킬 수 있으며 회사의 대리 비용이 높을 때 그 감독 역할이 더욱 강해질 것이라고 가정하였다. 첫째, 로짓 회귀결과는 압력저항기관의 소유권이 배당금분배 경향에 통계적으로 긍정적인 영향을 준 것을 보여주었고 압력민감기관의 소유권은 영향을 미치지 못하는 것을 보여주었다. 두 번째, 토빗 회귀결과는 대리비용이 높을 때 (정보공개등급이 낮은 경우) 압력저항기관의 소유권만이 배당금액에 통계적으로 긍정적인 영향을 준 것을 보여주었고 압력민감기관의 소유권은 영향을 미치지 못하는 것을 보여주었다. 저의 실증결과는 일차 차등 회귀를 사용한후 및 대체 대리비용의 프록시를 사용한 후에도 강건하였다.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1
• Chapter 2. THEORY AND LITERATURE REVIEW 5
• 2.1 Agency theory of cash dividends 5
• 2.2 Literature review 6
• 2.2.1 Institutional investors and corporate governance 6
• 2.2.2 Institutional investors and dividend policy 7
• 2.2.3 Heterogeneity of institutional investors 8
• Chapter 3. HYPOTHESIS 9
• 3.1 The impact of institutional ownership on the willingness of dividend payments 9
• 3.2 The impact of institutional ownership on the amounts of dividends 9
• Chapter 4. DATA AND RESEARCH MODEL 10
• 4.1 Data 10
• 4.2 Research model 10
• 4.3 Variables 12
• Chapter 5. EMPIRICAL RESULTS 13
• 5.1 Descriptive Statistics 13
• 5.2 Institutional ownership and willingness of dividend payments 13
• 5.3 Institutional ownership and amounts of dividends 14
• 5.4 Robustness test 16
• Chapter 6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 17