The Research Of The Dividend Policy Of Chinese Listed Companies And Empirical Analysis

The dividend policy is one of the main contents of finance management theory and the kernel of the profit distribution for the listed companies. The listed companies are the base of the capital market and firms' aim is to maximize their value. In such framework what form dividend policy should the listed companies take? The dividend policy is a puzzle in the financial field.In 1960s, American financier Miller and economist Modigliani published a paper named "Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Share" in which the viewpoint dividend unrelated to corporation value first appeared. Since then, lots of western scholars have long been probing the issue of dividend policy. They have conducted a lot of theoretical studies and empirical analyses, and put forward various theories with different ideas. Although so many scholars and so many theories, the dividend policy has not reached consensus.With the development of Chinese stock market and increasing of the listed companies, the research of the listed companies' behavior become more and more important, and the dividend policy caused the attention of Chinese scholars. Through study, people learn the dividend policy is not only a profit distribution question, but also relates to stockholders' wealth, the image of listed company, and transactional cost and agency cost.This paper takes the dividend policy combined Chinese practical background as researching object. With the normative and empirical analyses, this paper study the factors that affect the listed companies' dividend distribution, including the problem whether to assign dividend or not, what form should take and the different dividend policy between different industries.This paper is divided into six chapters as follows:Chapter 1: Introduction. The chapter introduces the background of dividend policy, the aim of the study and the content of the paper.Chapter 2: Literature Review. The chapter reviews a great deal of relevantwestern literature, makes an overall comprehensive analysis of and comments on the dividend policy theories through summarization of the general development of the dividend policy theories.Chapter 3: The chapter introduces some conceptions about dividend policy.Chapter 4: the chapter discusses the current situation of the dividend distribution of listed companies in China and the existing problems.Chapter 5: Empirical study. The chapter includes three parts as follows: (l)Empirical test the factors which affect Chinese listed companies whether to assign dividend or not of. (2) Empirical test the factors which affect Chinese listed companies should take what form dividend policy. (3) Empirical test the differentdividend policy between different industries.Chapter 6: Give conclusions and suggestions for future research.