| dc.description.abstract | This paper examines the dividend policy of Vietnamese companies listed on
HOSE and HNX over the period 2003-2009. Emperically, dividend payouts and other
characteristics of firms are following and influenced by the stages life cycle in which firm
is located. The study employs the logical proxy of life cycle stages, the
earned/contributed capital mix measured by the ratio of retained earnings to total equity
(or total assets) (proposed by DeAngelo et al. (2006), Fama and French (2001) to
evaluate its impact on Vietnamese firms’ dividend policy. The results show that firms
with high proportion of earned capital (retained earnings) relative to contributed capital,
larger size, lower leverage and high levels of cash holdings tend to pay higher dividends.
In addition, the evidence indicates that firms with higher growth opportunities, proxied
by market-to-book ratio, tend to pay lower dividend payout ratio. In the regression, the
mix of earned/contributed capital shows a quantitatively greater impact than measures of
growth opportunities and profitability. Besides, signaling characteristics of dividends
play some roles in determining the dividend payouts of companies. Collectively, the
findings from this paper provide much support for the life cycle hypotheses. Further
research and development on dividend policy in the context of Vietnam in general
specifically may be stemmed from this study. | en_US |
