The Influence Of Dividend Smoothing On Enterprise Innovation Output

Innovation is the first driving force for national economic development and prosperity,and the Fifth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China once again emphasized the need to adhere to the core position of innovation in the overall situation of China’s modernization construction.Enterprises are the main body of technological innovation and the main force of scientific and technological innovation,especially technological innovation.Continuously improving innovation capabilities can not only help enterprises to base themselves on the changing market environment,but also provide strong support for Chinese enterprises to continuously enhance their influence in the international market and win more voice.Although the investment of Chinese enterprises in innovative research and development projects is increasing,compared with developed countries,the innovation ability of most enterprises in China is still not strong.From a macro point of view,there are still problems such as insufficient investment in research and development,and the innovation incentive mechanism of enterprises is not perfect;from a micro-point of view,some enterprises are also facing problems such as high internal agency costs and insufficient capital supply,which restrict enterprise innovation.Therefore,research on the factors affecting enterprise innovation has always been a hot topic in practical circles and academia.The cash dividend policy and the investment decisions corresponding to the innovation and research and development of enterprises belong to the core category of financial management of listed companies.The dividend policy not only reflects the protection of the interests of investors by enterprises,but also has a substantial impact on the operation and management activities of enterprises,and enterprise innovation is an important part of them.So can the stable dividend policy signal in the capital market affect the tilt of corporate funds to innovative investment projects and improve the level of R&D output?What role does the financing constraints faced by businesses play in this?In order to answer these questions,this paper takes the ten-year data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2018 as a sample,and explores the impact of the signal effect of dividend smoothing on the innovation output of enterprises and the regulatory effect of financing constraints based on theoretical analysis and empirical research.The study shows that non-stable dividend enterprises are more active in carrying out innovation activities and produce more patents,and financing constraints restrict the improvement of enterprises’innovation ability,which weakens the transmission effect of dividend smoothing.In addition,this paper explores whether they will have a heterogeneous effect on the relationship between stable dividend policies and enterprise innovation from the perspective of equity concentration and enterprise life cycle,and the results show that when the equity concentration is higher,the less obvious the effect of non-stable dividends on enterprise innovation is,and this promotion effect does not show a strong role in growing enterprises.It can be seen that dividend signals will not only trigger changes in the external financing environment and the company’s stock price in the capital market,but also significantly affect the resource allocation of the real economy.