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Dividend Policy and Reputation
Author(s) -
Gillet Roland,
Lapointe MarcAndré,
Raimbourg Philippe
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of business finance and accounting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.282
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1468-5957
pISSN - 0306-686X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5957.2008.02074.x
Subject(s) - dividend , reputation , profitability index , dividend policy , economics , microeconomics , monetary economics , business , financial economics , finance , social science , sociology
We examine the role of reputation when firms use dividends to signal their profitability. We analyze a signaling model in which reputation plays no role in equilibrium. We then show that taking reputation into account as a link between sequential dividend decisions makes it possible to endogenize signaling costs and obtain a separating equilibrium. Lastly, we use the reversibility hypothesis and assume that in each period, managers can reverse their choices in terms of dividend distribution. We find that in most cases, the signaling equilibrium becomes unstable, causing any dividend signaling policy to become difficult to implement.