外文翻译---股利政策：争议问题-其他专业

1、原文： Dividend policy: The Issues1. Introduction The determinants of dividend policy are a continuing puzzle, as noted by Black (1976). In this paper we review the major issues in dividend policy and relate them to some of the themes explored in companion papers in this volume. The paper is d ivided i

2、nto five sections. Section 2 surveys the literature on the information signalling properties of dividends. Section 3 discusses some tax issues related to dividend policy and section 4 draws on some agency costs explanations for dividend payments. The conclusion draws together the arguments and highl

3、ights some of the unresolved issues. 2. Dividend policy and information signalling In their classic paper, Miller and Modigliani (1961) provide a cogent argument for the claim that dividend policy does not affect the value of the firm. They assume a world without transactions costs and taxes, a give

4、n investment policy and fully informed investors. In these circumstances it follows that "the irrelevance of dividend policy, given investment policy, is 'obvious, once you think of it'"(p.414). With a given level of investment, if a firm chooses to pay a dollar more of dividend no

5、w, it will have to raise an extra dollar of external finance to support its investment: The higher current dividend to existing shareholders will be exactly offset by a decrease in future dividends as the firm must now pay dividends to its new shareholders. In the absence of tax effects and transact

6、ions costs and given full information, the value of the firm to existing shareholders will not be affected by its dividend policy. Dividend policy is therefore irrelevant. Miller and Modigliani (1961) note that the "informational content" of dividends is assumed absent from their model. Th

7、ey note, however, that in practice "where a firm has adopted a policy of dividend stabilization with a long-established and generally appreciated 'target payout ratio', investors are likely to (and have a good reason to) interpret a change in dividend rate as a change in management'

8、s views of future profit prospects for the firm". This echoed the stance recorded by Lintner (1956) in his survey of U.S. company practices which led him to develop the 'partial adjustment' model of dividend beha-viour. Lintner suggests that the primary determinant of dividend payments

9、is the relationship between the existing dividend rate and "that rate which would constitute a target pay-out of current and reasonably forseeable profits". A number of different interpretations of Lintner's behavioural model are possible. One interpretation is that management signals

10、changes in their perception of the company's long-term profitability by changes in dividend payments. A paper by Allen, in this volume, assesses the use of target payout ratios by a sample of British companies, drawing on evidence obtained in a questionnaire survey. The results are consistent wi

11、th the implications of the Lintner model. Respondents report that a desire to maintain stable dividends and the company's recent dividend history are the main factors influencing target payouts. The importance of the use of payout levels to signal changes in expectations of future earnings is al

12、so emphasized. The role of information signalling has been emphasized in recent theoretical work on dividend policy. Miller and Rock (1985) provide a formal model of the role of dividend policy under asymmetric information. They assume that firm's managers know more than outside investors about

13、the true state of the firm's current earnings; both dividend payments and external financing will consequently have announcement effects as they provide information about the firm's sources and uses of funds that will enable the market to deduce the firm's current earnings. This estimate

14、 of current earnings can then be used to estimate expected future earnings and firm value. Unfortunately, this leads to the possibility that management may try to push up the share price in the short-run by over-generous dividend payments. Ultimately, the truth will be revealed but not before some i

15、nvestors have reaped an excess return by selling before the true information is revealed. Miller and Rock suggest a potential solution to this problem but at the expense of Fisher's criterion for optimal invest-ment. They provide a signalling equilibrium in which the dividend payout ratio is hig

16、her and real investment is lower than in the full information case. The above approach is consistent with the well-documented dividend an-nouncement effects as reported by Aharony and Swary (1980), Asquith and Mullins (1983), and Brickley (1983). Ball and Brown (1968) provide the first evidence of t

17、he linkage between unexpected changes in earnings and share prices. 3.Taxation and dividend policyThere are a number of potential linkages between corporate dividend policies and the tax system. Farrar and Selwyn (1967) and Brennan (1970) point out, that in tax regimes where dividend income is taxed

18、 at a higher marginal personal tax rate than capital gains, shareholders in different tax brackets will prefer different payout policies. It makes sense for higher personal tax rate investors to invest in lower dividend payout stocks so that they can take most of their gains in the form of capital g

19、ains. Indeed, pushed to the limit, this argument suggests that it is tax inefficient, from a highly taxed investor's point of view, for a company in this type of tax regime to pay any dividends. If equilibrium conditions are assumed, the argument also suggests that rational investors should dema

20、nd a higher risk-adjusted return, on a pre-tax basis, from high dividend yield stocks. This will compensate for their relatively unfavourable personal tax treatment. Trueman (1986) model the interaction of dividend policy, invest-ment decisions and financing decisions in the context of a corporate t

21、ax regime with varying investor personal tax rates. Their model implies that shareholders in different personal tax brackets will not agree on what constitutes the optimal investment/divi-dend policy. Investors in high personal tax brackets would prefer the firm to invest more whilst those in lower

22、tax brackets will prefer higher payouts and lower invest-ment. This problem will be reduced if clienteles of investors cluster around firms with different dividend payout policies. The possibility of a dividend clientele effect was first suggested by Miller and Modigliani (1961). It provides one pot

23、ential explanation of companies' observed reluctance to alter their dividend payout ratios. The result would be that shareholders would incur transactions costs in rearranging their portfolios to achieve desired income streams. Elton and Gruber (1970) examine the drop-off ratio, defined as the d

24、ifference between the ex-dividend and cum-dividend price scaled by the dividend, to try and measure clientele effects. If the price declines by the full amount of the dividend, after the payment of the dividend, the drop-off ratio is one. Elton and Gruber report a positive association between the me

25、an dividend yields and drop-off ratios. They interpret this as being consistent with the existence of a tax clientele effect and infer the marginal tax rates of investors from the size of the drop-off ratio. The implication is that shares with a larger drop-off ratio possess a clientele of investors

26、 with a lower tax burden on dividends received. Kalay (1982) has argued that it is not possible to infer investor clientele tax rates from the size of the drop-off ratio. This is because drop-off ratios would be bounded by transactions costs, not marginal tax rates. A paper by Clarke, in this volume

27、, assesses the impact of a change in tax regime on drop-off ratios in a sample of Australian shares resulting from the switch to a dividend imputation tax system in July 1987. However, these differences were not statistically significant and the large amount of noise in the data makes it difficult t

28、o draw clear cut conclusions. Further evidence relating to the impact of changes in dividend taxation regimes on security prices and yields is provided by Poterba and Summers (1984). They analyse a sample of British share price data for a period from 1955 to 1981. 4. Agency costs and dividend policy

29、 Jensen (1976) demonstrate that if management serve their own interests and not those of outside shareholders, then agency costs could arise. These will result because shareholders forsee that managers can increase their own wealth at their expense by the excessive use of perks or by shirking. In th

30、e Jensen and Meckling (1976) scenario, owner-managers may find it optimal to incur monitoring and bonding costs to reduce potential agency costs. These agency costs take a number of forms including monitoring costs and excessive risk aversion by managers who have a significant portion of their own w

31、ealth tied up with the fortunes of the firm. Unduly conservative behaviour may serve the interests of the firm's creditors but not the shareholders. Rozeff (1982) suggests that in the absence of taxes, it is possible for a firm to have an optimal dividend policy due to the existence of agency co

32、sts. He argues that dividend payout ratios could be conditioned by a tradeoff between the flotation costs of raising external finance and the benefit of reduced agency costs, realised when the firm increases its dividend payout ratio. Easterbrook (1984) also suggests that dividend payments may serve

33、 to reduce agency costs. Management can change the risk of the firm by changing both the profile of its real investment projects and the relative balance of debt and equity. By maintaining a constant payment of dividends it avoids a build up in the balance of equity funds and simultaneously forces t

34、he firm to seek external finance. The raising of external finance will cause periodic reviews of the firm's activities by the contribu-tors of capital; their presence therefore eases the burden on existing shareholders. Shareholders will also benefit from the adjustment of leverage ratios which

35、will accompany the raising of external finance. This argument also provides a potential explanation of why companies pay dividends and raise external finance at the same time. The final paper in this volume, by Allen, examines some of the pecularities of Japanese company dividend policies. Japanese

36、dividend policies have a number of interesting aspects. The standard policy is to pay a dividend which is 10 per cent of the par value of the stock. At first glance, this suggests that dividend policy cannot act as a signalling device in Japan. However, the payment of special and memorial dividends

37、is common and there is an emphasis on stock splits, both of which could be used as signalling mechanisms. On the other hand, many Japanese companies are members of groups with stable systems of cross-shareholdings. The group banks hold equity in group companies as well as providing loans. As group c

38、ompanies have many points of contact and channels of information, they are unlikely to require information signals from divi-dend payments. Furthermore, the fact that major lenders are also shareholders means that conflicts of interest giving rise to agency costs are also likely to be reduced. Divid

39、end policy should have less of a role in reducing agency costs in Japan. Indeed, it is quite conceivable that there are three distinct categories of share-holders in Japan: stable group shareholders, external institutional investors, and external individual shareholders. Institutional investors woul

40、d conceivably benefit from more generous dividend payout policies to help them meet their liabilities. Accounting standards and practices plus methods of conducting company annual general meetings mean that Japanese individual investors are not likely to be well-informed about company prospects rela

41、tive to stable shareholders who should be much better informed. Do the former glean any information from dividend policy? It is not clear why Japanese companies follow their current dividend policies, nor is it clear whether they can serve the interests of all their stakeholders equally. 5. Conclusi

42、on Dividend policy remains, as Black (1976) suggested, "a puzzle". The evidence in the West seems to suggest that dividend payments do impart information. There is also some evidence of taxation impacting upon share prices and returns via dividend policies. Why do firms pay dividends and r

43、aise external finance at the same time? It may be the case that Western companies see some benefit in the form of reduced agency costs resulting from the joint impact of the policy. However, it has to be admitted, dividend policies pursued in Japan do not fit neatly with any of the above theories.So

44、urce: D.E. Allen, H.Y. Izan, (1993) "Dividend Policy: The Issues", Managerial Finance, Vol. 18 Iss: 1, pp.1 8.二、翻译文章译文：股利政策：争议问题1、介绍股利政策的决定因素是一个持续的谜题,值得注意的是由布莱克(1976)在文中提出的论点,在文中我们回忆股利政策的重大课题以及关注了一些与股利政策相关的文章。论文分成了五个局部。第二局部调查的文献是信息信号性能的股息。第三局部讨论一些股利政策的相关的税收问题，第四局部引用了一些代理本钱股利发放的解释。结论得出的这些观点

45、一起强调了一些悬而未决的问题。2、股利政策和信息发送信号米勒和莫迪里阿尼1961在他们的经典论文中提供了一个有力的论据声称股利政策不影响企业的价值。They ass他们假设a world without transactions costs and taxes, a given investment policy and full 世界上没有一个全面的交易本钱和税收，给定的投资政策和投资者informed investors.有的充分信息。在这样的情况下,遵循“毫不相干的股利政策, “一旦你认为是对于投资政策的作用是明显的。在给定的投资水平下,如果一个公司现在选择支付一美圆更多的股息,它必须筹

46、集外部资本额外的一美元以支持他们的投资：更高的的红利正好抵消现有股东未来股利的减少和企业现在必须支付股息给新股东。在缺乏税收效应和交易本钱、信息充分下企业的价值对现有股东不受股利政策影响。In the absence of tax effects and transactions costs and given fulDividend policy is therefore irrelevan因此，股利政策是无关。Miller and Modigliani (1961) note that the "informational content" of dividends米勒

47、和莫迪利亚尼1961注意到，“信息内容股息is assumed absent from their model.假设偏离了他们的模型。They note, however, that in practice "whereThis echoed the stance recorded by Lintner (1956) in his survey of US company这照应林特纳1956在他的调查practices which led him to develop the 'partial adjustment' model of dividend beha-中美

48、国公司的活动中使他产生了用不同的模型局部调整的股息的记录。Lintner suggests that the primary determinant of dividend payments is the林特纳说明，发放股利的主要决定因素是relationship between the existing dividend rate and "that rate which would constitute现有的股息率的存在和“这个速度即会构成a target pay-out of current and reasonably forseeable profits" (p.

49、103).目标的当前和合理可预见的利润对于这点林特纳有不同的解释possible.可能。一种解释是, 公司的长期赢利和股利发放通过改变管理信号的感知变化而变化。One interpretation is that management signals changes in their perceptionA paper by Allen, in this volume, assesses the use of target payout ratios by a艾伦在文章中评估了对通过借鉴英国公司进行问卷调查利用了目标的支付比率的样品证据。其结果比拟吻合林特纳模型的含义。受访者report th

50、at a desire to maintain stable dividends and the company's recent dividend报告说，一个希望保持稳定分红和公司最近股息history are the main factors influencing target payouts.历史是目标支付的主要因素影响。使用的重要性支出水平变化信号对股票未来盈利的预期也是强调的重点。The importance of the use oThe role of information signalling has been emphasized in recent theore

51、tical信息的信号的作用也是最近股息政策理论一直强调的。Miller and Rock (1985) provide a formal model of the rol米勒和罗克1985提供一个正式模式作用的非对称信息条件下的股利政策。They assume that firm's manager他们认为公司的管理者know more than outside investors about the true state of the firm's current earnings;了解公司目前的盈利超过了对外部投资者了解的真实情况；both dividend payment

52、s and external financing will consequently have announcement同时红利收支和对外融资将因此需要发布相关的影响消息effects as they provide information about the firm's sources and uses of funds that，因为它们提供资金的信息是有关公司的消息来源和用该will enable the market to deduce the firm's current earnings.将使市场来推断公司的当期损益。This estimate of curren

53、t目前的估计，这earnings can then be used to estimate expected future earnings and firm value.收益可以被用来估计预期未来收益和公司价值。Unfortunately, this leads to the possibility that management may try to push up不幸的是，这将导致管理可能会尝试试图太高股价短期过度支付高股利。Ultimately, the最终，truth will be revealed but not before some investors have reaped

54、 an excess return by真相将被揭示而不是之前一些投资者赚取超额返回selling before the true information is revealed.销售前的真实信息显示出来。Miller and Rock suggest a potential米勒和罗克提出一个潜在solution to this problem but at the expense of Fisher's criterion for optimal invest-解决这个问题，但在代价是Fisher的最正确投资标准m。它们提供一个较高的信令均衡的派息率,实际利用外商直接投资是低于完整信

55、息的情况。保尔They provide a signalling equilibrium in which the dividend payout ratio isThe above approach is consistent with the well-documented dividend an-How much additional informa-Ball and Brown (1968) provide the first evidence of the linkage between保尔保尔和布朗1968提供了第一个证据是著名的对利润和股票价格之间意想不到变化的联系观点。Simi

56、lar evidence in a US context is provided by Kane, Lee and Marcus (1984).3Taxation and dividend policy税务及股息政策 在股利政策和税收制度有一些潜在的联系。There are a number of potential linkages between corporate dividend policiesFarrar and Selwyn (1967) and Brennan (1970) point out,that in法拉和塞尔温1967和布伦南1970指出，法勒和塞尔温(1967)和布

57、伦南(1970)指出,在税收制度中在股息收入是在更高的边际个人所得税资本收益中得到的,股东的比例比在不同的税级下将喜欢不同的支付政策，It makes sense for higher personal tax rate investors to invest in lower这是有道理的，税率更高的个人投资者投资于低派息股票以便他们能够获得他们大局部的获取形式的资本收益。 Indeed, pushed to the limit, this argument suggests that it is tax inefficient,事实上，是推到了极限，这种说法说明，它是税收效率不高，from

58、a highly taxed investor's point of view, for a company in this type of tax regime从高度征税投资者的角度来看对于公司一个因为在这类型的税收制度愿意to pay any dividends.支付任何股息。如果条件公平,争论结果也说明,合理的投资者应该要求更高的风险调整后的回报,在税前股票高股息率。这将弥补各自的相对不利的个人税收待遇。If equilibrium conditions are assumed, the argument alsoThiswill compensate for their rel

59、ativelyMiller and Scholes (1978) reduce the impact of the above argument by demon-Masulis and Trueman (1986) model the interaction of dividend policy, invest-特鲁曼1986模型的政策之间的相互作用分红，投资ment decisions and financing decisions in the context of a corporate tax regime wi决策和融资决策的制度下的法人税与varying investor per

60、sonal tax rates.不同投资者的个人所得税税率。Their model implies that shareholders in different他们的模型意味着在不同的股东personal tax brackets will not agree on what constitutes the optimal investment/divi-个人所得税不会同意什么构成了最优投资/股息的政策 dend policy.表示的公司股息政策。投资者在高个人税级下宁可在公司同时进行更多的投资在低税率下会选择更高的支付和较低的投资。米勒和莫迪里阿尼(1961) 首次提出这个问题将造成客户集群减少，投资者在公司不同的派息政策下可能影响顾客的红利。Investors in high personal tax brackets would pr