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The Role of Banks in Dividend Policy
Author(s) -
Allen Linda,
Gottesman Aron,
Saunders Anthony,
Tang Yi
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
financial management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.647
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1755-053X
pISSN - 0046-3892
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-053x.2012.01207.x
Subject(s) - dividend , dividend policy , corporate governance , business , insider , loan , monetary economics , dividend payout ratio , financial system , principal–agent problem , agency cost , finance , economics , shareholder , political science , law
We use loan‐specific data to document a significant inverse relation between a firm's dividend payouts and the intensity of a firm's reliance on bank loan financing. Banks limit dividend payouts to protect the integrity of their senior claims on the firm's assets. Moreover, dividend payouts decline in the presence of monitoring by relationship banks, which acts as an effective governance mechanism, thereby reducing the gains from precommitting to costly dividend payouts. Bank monitoring and corporate governance (insider stake and institutional block holdings) are complementary mechanisms to resolve firm agency problems, both reducing the firm's reliance on dividend policy.