股利政策、第一大股东和公司成长性:自由现金流理论还是掏空理论

Dividend Policy,the Largest Shareholder and Firm Growth:Free Cash Flow vs.Tunneling

本文以763家上市公司2003年的横截面数据为样本,检查了股利政策和第一大股东持股以及企业成长性机会之间的统计关系,考察了股利政策的股权效应,并比较分析了企业成长性机会对股利政策股权效应的影响程度。作者发现,第一大股东具有发放现金股利的显著动机,而且这种动机不受股东性质的显著影响。文章进一步观察到,企业成长性机会能够弱化第一大股东分配现金股利的激励,并促使公司保留更多的现金用于有价值的投资机会。本文的经验结果并不支持“掏空”理论,而更支持自由现金流理论:第一大股东能够迫使公司吐出多余的自由现金流,并能根据企业的成长性机会调整股利政策(在成长性高的公司增加投资,在成长性低的公司增加股利)。

This paper investigates 763 public corporate listing in SHSE,checks the statistic relationship among dividend policy,largest shareholding and firm growth.Author explores ownership's effect on dividend policy,and analyzes how growth opportunity impacts ownership's effect.This paper finds that the largest shareholder has stronger incentive to distribute corporate cash,and force management disgorges free cash flow.Furthermore,author also observes that growth opportunity could force companies retain more free cash flow.Our empirical result doesn't support tunneling theory,and support free cash flow theory.