Determinant Factors of Dividend Payments in Brazil

This study identifies factors that shaped cash disbursement distribution policies employed by Brazilian public companies listed on the Brazilian Securities, Commodities and Futures Exchange (BM&FBOVESPA) from 1995 to 2011. Relationships between Dividends/Total Assets and potential determinants discussed in the literature, including firm size, corporate governance, profitability, leverage, market to book, liquidity, investment, risk, profit growth, information asymmetry and agency conflict, are examined. The following econometric methods are employed: (1) Tobit, given the nature of the dividend data, and (2) the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to control for endogenous regressors. Significant positive variables found include size, return on assets (ROA), market to book, liquidity and profit growth. It can thus be inferred that larger firm size, profitability, market value, liquidity and profit growth correlate with greater firm pro pensity to distribute money to shareholders, thus supporting the theory of corporate finance. Significant negative variables found include leverage, liquidity squared, capex, beta and tag along 100%. It is thus inferred that more significantly leveraged companies that invest more heavily in fixed assets and that exhibit high liquidity, higher risk and less conflict between controlling and minority shareholders will be less likely to pay dividends to shareholders.

本研究旨在识别1995年至2011年间，于巴西证券期货交易所（BM&FBOVESPA）上市的巴西公众公司所采用的现金支付分配政策的影响因素。本研究检验了股息/总资产（Dividends/Total Assets）与现有文献讨论的各类潜在决定因素之间的关联，涵盖公司规模、公司治理、盈利能力、杠杆率、市账比、流动性、投资水平、风险、利润增长、信息不对称与代理冲突。本研究采用以下两种计量经济学分析方法：其一为托比特模型（Tobit），以适配股息数据的分布特性；其二为广义矩估计法（Generalized Method of Moments, GMM），用于控制内生解释变量带来的偏误。研究识别出的显著正向影响变量包括公司规模、资产收益率（return on assets, ROA）、市账比、流动性与利润增长。据此可推断，企业规模越大、盈利能力越强、市场估值越高、流动性越好且利润增长越快，其向股东分配现金的意愿就越强，这一发现支持了公司金融理论。研究识别出的显著负向影响变量包括杠杆率、流动性平方、资本支出、贝塔系数与100%跟随权（tag along 100%）。据此可推断，杠杆水平更高、固定资产投资规模更大、流动性偏高、风险更高且控股股东与中小股东冲突更少的企业，向股东派发股息的可能性更低。