產業競爭市場下股利政策對代理問題與成長機會之取捨

Abstract

本篇論文主要研究產業競爭是否會影響企業的股利政策。文獻上針對股利政策的議題提出兩個對立假說分別為成熟假說與自由現金流量假說，前者認為企業的成長與股利分配呈負向關係，而後者認為企業為了減少代理問題會增加股利的分配。可是在過去的文獻並沒有討論不同的產業競爭市場下，股利政策面對企業成長與代理問題會如何取捨。有鑑於此，本研究以美國製造業為研究樣本，利用迴歸分析進行研究。結果發現產業競爭度愈高，企業傾向保留較多的現金以因應其成長機會，而選擇分配較少股利。此也說明股利政策跟產業競爭呈顯著的負向關係。簡言之，在產業競爭性愈高的情況下企業股利政策與成熟假說一致。

This paper investigates whether or not product market competition affects payout policy. According to literature, issues related to dividend payout policy comprise two competing hypotheses, namely, the maturity hypothesis and the free cash flow hypothesis. The former argues that growth opportunity and dividend payout have a negative relationship, whereas the latter argues that firms tend to increase dividend payouts in order to weaken agency problems. Existing studies seldom discuss the issue, in which dividend payout policy faces the trade-off between growth opportunity and agency problem in different levels of product market competition. Therefore, employing regression analysis, we explored the current issue with U.S. manufacturing firms as samples. The firms show the tendency to retain more cash to expand their growth opportunities and decide to pay fewer dividends in less–concentrated industries. Therefore, the dividend policy of firms is consistent with the maturity hypothesis in less-concentrated industries.