摘要：One of the major financial decisions for a public company is the dividend policy - theproportion in which the company decides to distribute profits to shareholders. The difficulty of thedecision comes from the implications on firm value. There are conflicting points of view ondividend policy. Even if under ideal conditions (perfect markets) dividend policy is irrelevant (thetheory of Modigliani and Miller), still the way in which companies behave shows that the dividendpolicy is relevant in practice. Market imperfections (taxes, information asymmetry, transactioncosts) influence dividend policy. The aim of this paper is to present the major theories andfindings related to dividend policy that can help managers to make their decision of profitdistribution with a positive impact on the stock price.
关键词：dividend policy; value of the firm; cost of equity; clientele effect; signaling effect
