Peer Effects In Cash Dividend Decision Of Listed Companies In China

Although there have been abundant research results in the formulation of dividend policy so far,it is difficult to have a more applicable and complete theory to explain the dividend policy anomalies that appear in the capital market continuously.When analyzing the dividend policy of listed company,the traditional dividend policy theories often take the listed company as an independent individual,looking for the potential relevant factors that affect the dividend decision-making of the company from inside or outside,while ignoring the interaction between companies from the perspective of peer effect.On the one hand,with the research and application of social psychology extended to the field of economics and management,based on the consideration of social interaction,the listed company is regarded as a member of many company groups in the industry.Then,the peer effect provides a good breakthrough point for exploring how the cash dividend decision of companies in the same industry affects the decision of individual company;On the other hand,in the era of information resource competition,interlock director is an important phenomenon in the field of corporate governance.Because interlock directors are regarded as informal information communication channels,it has become a new and original research direction.Therefore,the peer effect of social psychology is introduced into the discussion of corporate cash dividend decision-making,and the interlock directors in the same industry are regarded as an important channel of information transmission,which will make up for the lack of research on the formation mechanism of the peer effect of cash dividend decision of listed companies.Based on the data of 12147 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2014 to 2018,this paper tests the existence of peer effect in cash dividend decision of Listed Companies in China.At the same time,from the perspective of director interlocks,this paper further explores the impact of director interlocks on corporate dividend peer effect and the intermediary role of the advisory and supervisory functions of the board of directors;In addition,it also examines the differences in the impact of interlock director chain on the peer effect of corporate dividends at different levels of industry competition,in different property rights and subject to different financing constraints,finally,it also discusses the value effect of the peer effect of the cash dividend policy with the director chain.The results show that:(1)there is an obvious peer effect in the cash dividend policy of Listed Companies in China.(2)The director interlocks of the company in the same industry,that is,whether they are interlock directors or not and the intensity(quantity)of director interlocks,can significantly affect the peer effect of the target company on the cash dividend policy of the same group company.(3)The advisory and supervisory functions of the board of directors play a partial intermediary role in the director interlocks effect and the peer effect of dividends.(4)In different situations,the impact of interlock directors on the peer effect of dividends is heterogeneous.In low competitive industries,the target company needs more cash dividend decision-making information of the same group companies obtained through interlock directors in order to carry out the same group follow-up behavior,while in high competitive industries,Director interlock has no obvious influence on the peer effect of the company’s cash dividend decision;When the financing constraints faced by the company are small,the decision-making interaction based on director interlocks is more active,and the promotion effect of director interlock on the company’s cash dividend decision-making is more significant;Compared with companies with state-owned property rights,in companies with non-state-owned property rights,the more interlock directors,the more significant the peer effect of dividend decision-making will be.(5)The value effect brought by this effect to the company is an inverted U-shaped curve.