A Research On The Relationship Between The Ownership Structure And Cash Dividend Policy Of China's Listed Companies

Based on the redefine and reclassification of ownership structure of listed companies in China, we select the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies' panel data from 1998-2008 to investigate the relationship between the ownership structure and the dividend policy. On the basis of reviewing and summarizing the existing theoretical and empirical studies, we analyze the change of the ownership structure of the listed companies and the corresponding characteristics of their dividend policy. We find that there are significant differences in ownership structure between companies which distribute dividends and those which do not distribute. With a Logit model, we find that all kinds of ownership, including general institution, mutual fund, government, individual and foreign institution, are positively related to companies' tendency to allocate dividends. And then we develop multivariate linear model and non-linear model to test the impact of ownership on the level of dividends of listed companies. Results of the study show that ownership ratios of mutual fund and foreign institutions have a "inverted U" relationship with dividends per share, and the ratios of general institutions, government and individual investors are positively related to this dividend level. While general institutions, mutual fund and government have a "U-type" relationship with dividend payout ratios, and the individual and foreign institutional ownership are positively related to the ratios. The study reveals that investors have different preference for the dividends, and the ownership structure imposes an important impact on the payout policy of listed companies in China's stock market.