한국주식시장의 배당규모와 기업가치간 비선형관계에 관한 연구

Using a sample of Korean corporations over the period 2000-2008, we examine the cross-section relation between dividends and firm value and evaluate existing dividend hypotheses. Unlike previous empirical studies that presume a linear dividend-firm value relation, we accounts for the possibility that this relation could be nonlinear and also address endogeneity inherent in this relation. Our findings suggest that the dividend-firm value relation is not monotonically increasing or decreasing, but inverted-U-shaped. That is, on average, non-dividend-payers are traded at a premium relative to low-dividend-payers and medium-dividend-payers, while top-dividend-payers are also traded at a premium relative to low-dividend-payers and medium-dividend-payers. This U-shaped pattern is robust to controls for key firm characteristics and endogeneity. Also, this pattern persists even when we include share repurchases in calculating the amount of dividends. Given that this U-shaped cross-sectional relation is highly stable over time over the sample period, our evidence questions the premise of the dividend catering hypothesis that the dividend- firm value relation varies in shape depending on the time period. Further, our evidence suggests that existing hypotheses, such as the free-cash-flow hypothesis and the dividend clientele hypothesis, may have limited explanatory power for explaining the empirical dividend-firm value relation.