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DIVIDEND POLICY AND TARGET PAYOUT RATIOS
Author(s) -
Partington Graham H.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
accounting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.645
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-629X
pISSN - 0810-5391
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-629x.1984.tb00061.x
Subject(s) - dividend payout ratio , dividend , business , monetary economics , dividend policy , demographic economics , economics , finance
This paper is concerned with a study of the dividend policies of large Australian companies. A majority of the firms studied used an explicit target payout ratio, reflecting an objective of distributing a more or less fixed proportion of profits in the long run. However, a significant minority (41%) reported that they made no explicit use of payout targets. Some firms had changed their targets materially over the period 1965–1980, and there was weak evidence that these firms tended to have lower targets than firms which left their targets relatively unchanged. There was no evidence of an industry effect upon the use, or magnitude, of payout targets.