저배당, 연구개발비 그리고 외국인투자자

Dividend signalling theory tells that dividend announcement conveys information to investors about the firm’s future prospect, and decrease or omission of dividends, in particular, drops stock prices(Bhattacharya 1979；John and Williams 1985；Miller and Rock 1985；Liu 2008；Jensen et al. 2010). However, Liang et al.(2001) insist that low dividends or dividend omissions do not necessarily mean negative information. They rather present positive relationship with abnormal stock returns with good stream of investments opportunity, sometimes. Under these circumstances, if foreign investors hold low-dividend paying stocks, they would have invested in them expecting the firms’ future prospects. Since Korean domestic stock market was open to foreign investors in 1992, they have consistently made above the average returns on their investment in the market(Han and Oh 2007). In particular, if they invested in low-paying stocks, we can expect that they may have carefully analyzed the firms’ investment opportunities with their expertise and distinguished the low-dividend paying signals into financial distress and investment opportunity. In this regard, we employ the level of firms’ R&D expenditure as a proxy for the firms’ growth opportunities, and examine whether it influences the investment decisions of the foreign investors holding low-dividend stocks. We further assess that the firms with low-dividend payout policy, high level of expenditure on R&D and high level of foreign investment in shares achieve higher future performances, measured via Tobin’s Q. The results evidences that foreign investors holding low-dividend paying stocks can actually distinguish the firms’ low-dividend payout signal with investment opportunity from financial distress. Thus, it suggests an idea that the foreign investors’ investment behaviors holding low-dividend paying stocks could bring out a signal for the invested firms’ future prospects.