The importance of cash-flow uncertainty in payout policy has received little attention in empirical studies, while survey studies such as [Lintner, J., 1956. Distribution of incomes of operations among dividends, retained earnings, and taxes. American Economic Review 46, 97–113.] and [Brav, A., Graham, J., Harvey C., Michaely, R., 2005. Payout policy in the 21st century. Journal of Financial Economics 77, 483–527.] indicate its importance. With worldwide firm-level data, we present evidence that cash-flow uncertainty is an important cross-sectional determinant of corporate payout policy. Our results show that across countries, cash-flow uncertainty, as proxied by stock return volatility, has a negative impact on the amount of dividends as well as the probability of paying dividends. The impact of cash-flow uncertainty on dividends is generally stronger than the impact of other potential determinants of payout policy—such as the earned/contributed capital mix, agency conflicts, and investment opportunities. We also find that the effect of cash-flow uncertainty on dividends is distinct from the effect of a firm's financial life-cycle stage.

In this study, we examine the patterns and determinants of share repurchases using firm-level data from seven major countries—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.—over the period 1998–2006. We find that while non-U.S. firms do not repurchase shares as much as U.S. firms do, both U.S. and non-U.S. firms display a common set of share repurchase behaviors. For example, across countries, firms use share repurchases as a flexible means of distributing cash. More importantly, large cash holdings are significantly associated with the amount of share repurchases in all countries. There is evidence that large cash holdings held by repurchasing firms represent excess cash. Firms tend to experience substantial increases in cash holdings prior to share repurchase as a result of reductions in capital expenditures. Overall, our evidence lends support to two hypotheses: (i) firms discharge excess capital to reduce agency conflicts and (ii) firms use repurchases to distribute temporary cash flows.

For a large sample of 48 countries, we find robust evidence that strong creditor rights are associated with low long-term leverage across countries. We further find that strong creditor protection lowers long-term debt issuance, the extent to which investments are financed with long-term debt, and target leverage ratios. Finally, we find that firm and country characteristics influence the link between creditor protection and long-term leverage. Our results support the demand-side view that strong creditor protection discourages firms from making long-term cash flow commitments to service debt because managers and shareholders avoid the risk of losing control in the case of financial distress.

This study identifies a J-shaped relation between dividends and firm value. On average, top-dividend-payers are valued higher than all other firms, while non-dividend-payers are valued higher than low-dividend-payers. This J-shaped relation is highly stable over time as it is observed in nearly every year over the period 1962–2010, and it remains significant after controlling for firm characteristics such as profitability, growth and firm size. We also find similar J-shaped relations in stock markets outside the U.S. Our evidence suggests that dividend theories, such as the dividend catering, free-cash-flow and dividend clientele hypotheses, are inadequate to explain the J-shaped relation. It does not appear that the J-shaped pattern reflects mispricing. There is mixed evidence as to whether the J-shaped relation is driven by dividends or unobservable firm characteristics.

This paper examines the leverage policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) in comparison to those of domestic corporations (DCs). Prior studies document that MNCs have lower leverage levels. However, our analysis of U.S. firms over the period 1981–2010 reveals that the leverage levels of MNCs are not significantly lower than those of DCs if we control for key firm characteristics related to leverage levels. We also find that MNCs and DCs do not differ significantly in terms of their debt maturity structure, the speed of leverage adjustments, or the propensity to issue debt vs. equity (or vs. not to issue debt). The results suggest that MNCs' financial policies at the corporate level are not significantly influenced by their greater exposures, in comparison to DCs, to market imperfections such as taxes and regulations. Interestingly, however, our additional analysis of MNCs from outside the U.S. reveals that non-U.S. MNCs issue securities more frequently and adjust leverage faster than their domestic peers.

This study uses the quantile regression method to determine the relative importance of internal and external sources of funds in financing corporate investments across different levels of investment activities. Our findings lend support to the first (internal–external) rung of the pecking order, as investments are more responsive to internal funds than to external funds at almost all investment levels except at top investment levels. However, empirical support for the second (debt–equity) rung of the pecking order is tenuous, as investments are more responsive to equity issuance than to debt issuance at low and medium investment levels. Intriguingly, firms rely primarily on internal funds for organic growth (via capital expenditures or R&D spending), whereas they use debt capital heavily in financing acquisition-led growth. Finally, firms at high investment levels hold large cash holdings and save a significantly large fraction of equity issue proceeds as cash.