外文翻译---瑞士的股利政策

中文3470字
外文文献翻译译文
一、外文原文
原文：
Dividend policy in Switzerland
Dividend policy has long been a subject of research and debate. There are many theoretical and empirical results describing the decisions companies make in this area. At the same time, however, there is no generally accepted model describing payout policy. Moreover, empirical findings are often contradictory or difficult to interpret in light of the theory.
In the ideal world of Miller and Modigliani (1961), dividends are irrelevant. The value of a firm is given by its investment opportunities. Dividends are just the residual, and investors faced with consumption shocks can always get their own “homemade” dividends.
In “real life”, however, dividend policy is one of the main concerns for managers and investors. Empirical studies have generally found that dividend increases are considered good news by investors, while dividend decreases lead to negative reactions.
Several explanations for the existence and importance of dividends have been suggested over the last decades. Dividends could be used as signals for the actual position of a firm. Companies could communicate their better quality by paying higher dividends: low-quality firms will not be able to imitate them since dividends involve costs in terms of foregone investment, taxes, or the need to attract external capital. Agency theory suggests that dividends may be a way to reduce the overinvestment problem or a means to keep firms in the capital markets. Dividends may also be used to attract institutional investors, who are better monitors and prefer dividends for regulatory reasons. Behavioral aspects, such as self-control, fairness, or
regret aversion, may also be important parts of the picture.
Each of the main theories concerning dividend policy has found at least some support in actual data. However, empirical research has also revealed weaknesses of these explanations, and a broad consensus concerning the “best” theory of corporate payout seems far away. We may know more about the “dividend puzzle”, but we are still without a definite solution.
The present paper examines some of the characteristics of dividend policy using Swiss data. The first part presents factors that influence variations in dividend payments across companies at a given point in time. The second part analyzes the changes in dividends over time.
The cross-sectional analysis for the 2000–2003 periods compares the characteristics of dividend payers and non-payers. It then identifies several determinants of the differences between dividend payers in terms of payout ratios and dividend yields. The results show that companies that are less risky, larger, with lower growth opportunities, and with lower leverage tend to pay higher dividends. Institutions show a preference for dividend-paying companies, but there is little evidence that they prefer higher payout ratios or dividend yields.
Quite interestingly, the factor that turns out to have the strongest influence on payout ratios and dividend yields is price volatility. This may be interpreted as a sign that companies with higher earnings uncertainty are less likely to pay high dividends - or to pay dividends at all.
Dividends per share are much more widespread as a headline indicator of dividend policy. The final section of the paper looks at changes in (split-adjusted) dividends per share and seeks to determine whether these changes have informational content. The results show that dividend increases follow periods of high earnings and cash flow growth, whereas dividend decreases follow declines.
A closer look at the data reveals that there may nevertheless be some information conveyed by dividend changes. The average future level of earnings after dividend increases is significantly higher than the mean over the previous few years. The earnings of companies that decrease the dividend decline slightly and remain at a
persistently low level around the dividend change.
An important class of models is based on the idea that the assumption of perfect information may be unrealistic and that dividends can be used as signals of firm quality. Bhattacharya (1979) builds a two-period model with two types of firms. Investments are made during the first period; their expected profitability is known to management, but not to outside investors. In order to signal the quality of their investment, the managers of “good” firms (managers are assumed to act in the interest of initial shareholders) will commit to paying high dividends in the second period. Since attracting outside financing (during the second period) is expensive due to transaction costs, “low-quality” firms will be unable to imitate “high-quality” ones. The alternative models of Miller and Rock (1985) and John and Williams (1985) consider the cost of dividends in terms of foregone investments and taxes, respectively.
The signaling models provide an explanation for the positive stock price reaction to the announcement of dividend increases or initiations. However, the empirical evidence on this hypothesis is mixed. In an early study, Watts (1973) found that unexpected changes in earnings and unexpected changes in dividends were related, although he remained skeptical about the possibility to make money by exploiting this regularity. Penman (1983) finds that “both dividend announcements and manag ement’s earnings forecasts possess information about management’s expectations”. Using a sample of dividend initiations and omissions, Healy (1988) find that dividend initiations and omissions have informational content (the change in earnings is related to announcement-day returns, even when controlling for previous earnings), but this only holds for year 1. Yoon and Starks (1995) and Denis et al(1994) show that dividend change announcements are linked to revisions in analysts’ forecasts of current income.
Based on the mixed results for the signaling theory, Grullon et al (2002) suggest that, rather than an increase in profitability, dividend increases could reflect a decrease in risk –the “maturity hypothesis”. They find that while profitability declines following a dividend increase, systematic risk in a three-factor Fame French
model decreases. They argue that as firms become more mature (and therefore less risky, but with lower growth opportunities), they will be more likely to pay large dividends to their shareholders.
Agency theory suggests that dividends can be used as a means to control a firm’s management. Distributing dividends reduces the free cash flow problem and increases the management’s equity stake. Easterbrook (1984) also suggests that div idends can be used to keep firms in capital markets, where they are monitored by potential investors. This is useful since monitoring by existing shareholders can be hindered by coordination problems. Lang (1989) find that dividend increases are associated with higher positive share price reactions for companies with Tobin’s q smaller than unity, i.e., for companies with lower growth opportunities.
Other evidence, however, tends to qualify the agency explanation. Capital expenditures increase following dividend increases, and decrease following dividend decreases and omissions compared to the previous average (This is in line with the findings of Yoon and Starks 1995 and Denis et al. 1994). Moreover, companies that increase dividends have not had significantly higher increases in capital expenditure over the previous 2 years, while companies that omit dividends show a significant slowdown over the same period. Thus, dividend increases do not follow an investment boom, while dividend cuts and omissions are not associated with subsequent higher investment that may indicate better growth opportunities. Cash flows and cash levels for dividend-increasing companies remain at a high level and even increase over the medium term.
Dividends may thus become informative about earnings in a way not envisaged in classical signaling models. Since managers want to avoid dividend decreases, they will only increase dividends when they are reasonably sure that there has been a sustainable increase in earnings. They will also cut or omit dividends only when the firm’s earnings position has deteriorated considerably. As a result, a dividend increase will follow a period of significant earnings growth and confirm that the new, higher level of earnings is persistent. At the same time, dividend decreases will follow a slowdown and confirm that the firm will still be in a difficult position in the future.
Indeed, although their study seriously challenges the role of dividend changes as a signal for future earnings, Benartzi et al. (1997) find that earnings are less likely to decrease following dividend increases.
The paper has examined several features of dividend policy for a sample of Swiss companies. Cross-sectional comparisons show negative relationships between dividend payments and market-to-book ratios, price volatility, and leverage, as well as positive relationships with profitability and (to a lesser extent) firm size and institutional holdings. Ownership concentration does not seem to have significant effects. Companies that used repurchases over the recent years were riskier and less profitable than companies choosing dividends. While some of these relationships are expectable, the negative relationship between leverage and dividend payments, the weak influence of ownership structure, the strong influence of price volatility, and the contrast between dividends and repurchases are not obvious results in the light of theory and previous empirical studies and thus are important aspects to note.
Signaling models suggest that dividend changes predict future profitability. Still, the analysis of the data indicates that when dividends increase, earnings have already increased. There are no obvious signs of faster growth after positive changes in dividends.
Nonetheless, there is evidence that when dividends increase, future average earnings will be at a higher level compared to the past. Companies that decrease or omit dividends have been in a difficult position for several years, and they will still have inferior cash flows and earnings over the medium term. They will also have significantly lower capital expenditures.
This part of the paper examines the factors that determine variations in dividend policy across firms. The comparison is based both on averages for the 2000–2003 period and on data for the single year 2003.
There are several groups of variables that are considered in the cross-sectional comparisons:
-Market-to-book ratios, as a proxy for growth opportunities. Since low market-to-book companies are more likely to have free cash flow problems, it is to
be expected that they pay (higher) dividends.
-Total assets and total sales, as proxies for firm size. Large companies are usually “mature” companies and therefore have more available cash relative to their
positive NPV projects. Moreover, they are more likely to have widely dispersed shareholdings, and dividends could be used as a way to “keep” firms “in the
capital markets” in order to enhance monitoring. At the same time, however, large companies are usually considered less information ally opaque than small
companies, and so there may be less need for dividends as costly signals. Thus, observing the actual connection between firm size and dividend policy can be
interesting.
-The firms’ betas and price volatility (computed as the b and within which the share price moved around the mean price during the year), as measures of firm risk. The “maturity hypothesis” suggests that dividend increases are associated with decreases in risk rather than increases in profitability. Also, risk is an important firm characteristic in itself, and it is important to control for it.
-Capital gearing, as a measure of leverage in book terms. Debt covenants often include limits concerning dividend payments as a way to mitigate the agency problem between shareholders and debt holders. On a different level, both debt and dividends can be used to reduce the free cash flow problem. Johnson (1995) suggests that debt and dividends could be alternative means to control management. Returns on assets and returns on equity, as measures of firm profitability. While it may seem obvious that more profitable companies will pay higher dividends, it is important to control for this measure while examining the impact of the other factors.
-Several indicators for the ownership structure of these companies. The ownership of large Swiss companies is quite varied –from family-owned companies to widely-held ones, or companies owned by investment funds. Thus, it is interesting to examine the impact of the ownership structure on dividend policy.
These findings suggest that dividend changes can become informative due to the manager’s asymmetric perception of rewards for dividend increases and negative
consequences of dividend cuts. Since managers try to avoid cutting dividends until th ey “have to”, and only increase them when they think earnings are sufficient, dividend increases show that earnings have shifted to a higher level over the medium term, while dividend decreases are a sign that the firm’s problems are likely to continue in the following years.
This mechanism can also explain why price volatility is such an important factor in the cross-sectional comparisons. If price volatility is taken to be a sign of uncertainty concerning future earnings, then its strong negative relationship with dividends may mean that managers try to keep dividends at a low level in order to avoid having to cut them in low earnings states. Thus, dividend changes can actually be informative, although the mechanism may be different from that considered in classical signaling models. Exploring this hypothesis over larger samples, and perhaps for other countries with different regulatory environments, can be an interesting area for future research.
Source: Bogdan stacescu, “Dividend policy in Switzerland”Fin Mkts Portfolio Mgmt(2006)20:153-183
二、翻译文章
译文：
瑞士的股利政策
股利政策一直是研究和辩论的话题。

有很多理论和实证研究结果说明公司在这一领域做出的决定。

然而，在同一时间没有一个普遍接受的描述股利政策的模式。

此外，实证结果往往是矛盾的或难以解释的理论根据。

在米勒和莫迪里阿尼(1961)的理想世界里，股息是无关紧要的。

一个企业的价值是由其投资机会决定的。

股息只是一小部分因素，投资者的目的是能让他们一直得到自己想要的消费股的红利。

然而，在“现实生活”中，股利政策是投资者和管理者主要关注的问题之一。

实证研究发现，红利增加对投资者来说一般是好消息，而股息降低时会给投资者造成负面的影响。

在过去几十年里，几种关于股息的存在及其重要性的解释已被提出。

红利可以作为公司实际情况的标志。

高质量的公司可以支付较高的股息；低质量的公司将无法与他们比拟，因为股息需要已知投资、税收和吸引外部资本成本。

代理理论认为，股息可能是一个用以减少过度投资问题的方法，或是用来保持公司立足于资本市场上的方法。

股息也可以用来吸引那些因为一些监管原因较注重红利的较精明的机构投资者。

关于行为的方面，例如自我控制，公正或者憎恨反感，也许也是这个部分的原因。

其中每一种关于股利政策的主要理论都能在实际数据中找到一些支持。

然而，实证研究也透露了这些解释的缺陷，那就是公司支出的“最好”理论与公众广泛的共识似乎相差很远。

我们可能对“红利难题”有很深的了解，不过我们现在仍然没有明确的解决办法。

本论文利用瑞士的数据探讨了股利政策的一些特征。

第一部分介绍了影响股息变化的因素；第二部分分析了股利随着时间的推移而产生的变化。

2000-2003年期间，我们通过分析横断面的特点比较了股息纳税人和非纳税人。

然后确定几个影响股息支付率和股息收益率差异的几个因素。

结果表明，公
司以较低的杠杆倾向于支付较高股息。

机构显示了支付股息的公司的偏好，但很少有证据表明，他们宁愿支付更高的比率或股利收益率。

有趣的是，原来的因素，价格波动对支付率和股息收益率有强烈的影响。

这种解释可能被作为一个标志，具有较高的收益不确定性的公司不太可能支付高股息。

每股股息作为股利政策的标题指标是很普遍的。

该文件的最后部分着眼于每股股利的变化，并寻求以确定这些变化信息的内容。

结果表明，股利增加后续时期会因为高收益和现金流的增长而使股利降低。

仔细观察数据后发现，有可能是一些信息转达了分红的变化。

股利增加后，未来的平均盈利水平显著高于前几年的平均盈利水平。

一类重要模型基于这样一种假说，完全信息可能并不现实，红利可能才是公司质量的标志。

巴特查亚(1979年)用两种类型的公司建立了一个两期模型。

在前一时期进行投资，他们的预期收益，管理者是众所周知的，而外来投资者不知晓。

为了表示他们的投资质量，“好”公司的经理（经理被认定为在股东大会上首选股东权益）将承诺在第二阶段支付高股利。

因为吸引外来的融资（在第二时期）交易成本昂贵，“低质量”的企业无法在这方面与“高品质”的企业比拟。

米勒和洛克(1985年)、约翰和威廉姆斯(1985年)的替代模型分别考虑了投资和税收损失方面的股息成本。

信号模型为因红利上涨而股票价格上涨提供了一个好的解释。

然而，实证结果对这个假设是喜忧参半的。

在早期的研究中，美国瓦茨(1973)意外地发现收入的变化会引起股利意想不到的变化，尽管他为了继续赚钱而对这种规律性持怀疑态度。

佩因曼发现，“股息公告和经营盈利预测都具能预测信息管理”。

希利(1988)通过研究股利政策和遗漏样本发现股息政策和遗漏的信息内容，但这只成立了一年。

尹和斯塔克斯、丹尼斯等人(1994)表明，现金股利变动宣告与分析家对目前收入预测修正有关。

基于不同结果的信号理论，Grullon等人(2002)表明，股利的上升不仅仅能表示盈利的增加，也可能反映了风险下降——“成熟假说”。

他们发现，利润下降时股息就会增加，在法国的系统模式下会减少。

他们说，当企业更成熟时（因此风险较低，但增长机会较低），他们将更有可能支付巨额股利给股东。

代理理论表明，股利可以用来作为一种手段去控制公司的管理。

分配股息减
少自由现金流问题，并提高了管理层的股权。

伊斯特布鲁克(1984)也表明，股息可使公司立足于资本市场，在那里他们受到潜在投资者的监督。

这是有益的，因为被潜在股东监管可以避免协合问题。

朗(1989)发现，股利增加伴随着更高的积极的股价反应，比如托宾的Q公司，就是因为规模较小而缺乏增长机会的公司。

其他的证据往往会限定代理的解释。

股利增加使支出增加，资本下降。

此外，公司在过去2年的资本并没有因为分红增加而有显著的增长，而忽略公司股息表现出比同期明显放缓。

因此，股利增加不遵守投资热潮，而股息削减和遗漏不与后续较高的投资相适应，可能抓住更好的增长机会。

现金流量和股利现金水平增加，甚至在中期内增加，能使公司维持在一个较高的水平。

在经典的信号模型下，股息可能因此成为判断企业是否盈利的方式。

由于管理者避免股息下降，他们只会增加分红。

因为他们有理由相信，只有增加分红才能保持盈利的可持续增长。

只有当公司的盈利状况已经严重恶化，他们才会减少或不分红。

因此，股利的增加将遵循一定的盈利增长时期，并确认新的，更高的，持久的盈利水平。

在同时间，股息减少，盈利也会跟随下滑，并确认该公司在未来仍然是一个困境。

本纳特兹等人发现，收入下降不太可能引起股息增加。

本文已审查了以瑞士公司为样本的股利政策的几个特点。

通过横截面数据的对比结果发现，负分红之间的关系和市场对账面的比例，充分利用价格波动，以及与盈利能力和（一个较小的程度上）公司规模、机构持有的关系。

股权集中度似乎不会有明显的效果。

近几年，使用回购方法的公司风险比选择分红的公司更大，利润却要少。

尽管这些关系有些是意料之中的，但杠杆和分红之间的负相关关系，股利发放，股权结构的影响，强大的价格波动的影响和红利与回购之间的对比结果并没有在理论和以往经验明显表现出来，因此，这个方面就更重要的。

股利信号模型表明，股息变化能预测未来的盈利能力。

然而，通过对数据的分析表明，当红利增加，收入就已经增加了。

股利正向改变后，没有明显的快速增长的迹象。

尽管如此，还是有证据证明当股息增加时，未来的平均工资水平会比过去高一个层次。

这几年里，那些减少或忽略分红的公司都处在困境中，而且到中期时他们还有较差的资金流动性和较少的利润。

他们的资本性支出也将大幅降低。

本文的这一部分研究的因素，确定不同股利政策的企业的股利变化。

这个比较是基于双方2000-2003年和2003年的单一数据的平均值。

以下是几个在横截面考虑的变量：
- 市场与账面价值比率，作为一个成长的机会代理。

因为低市场与账面价值的公司更有可能预料到自由的现金流问题，他们支付（更高的）股利。

- 总资产和销售总额，作为企业规模的代理。

大公司通常是“成熟”的公司，因此有更多的可用现金。

此外，他们有更多的股权和红利加以监督。

然而，人们通常认为大公司的信息透明程度比小公司低，所以可能不太需要股息作为昂贵的信号。

因此，观察企业的股利政策可以很有趣。

- 该公司的贝塔值和价格波动，作为公司风险的措施。

“成熟”假说认为，与股息增幅相关的是风险的降低，而不是利润的增加。

此外，风险本身是一个公司的重要特点，重要的是要控制它。

- 资本结构，作为一个杠杆的实施。

债务契约往往包括有关限制，以此来减轻分红。

在不同层次，债务和红利可用于减少现金流动问题。

约翰逊（1995）认为，债务和红利可替代控制管理手段。

- 资产和股本收益率，作为公司的盈利情况。

这似乎是显而易见的，更多的公司将支付更高股息，重要的是为这项措施采取的控制，同事检查其他因素的影响。

- 对于这些公司的所有权结构的若干指标。

瑞士公司的所有权结构有很大的不同，家族企业是要广泛持有的，或由公司自有资金投资。

因此，有趣的是研究所有制结构可以得出所有制结构对股利政策的影响。

这些研究结果表明，红利的改变是经理对红利奖励的不对称感知增大和红利减少这种负面影响的信息来源。

管理者尽量避免减少红利直到他们不得不这么做，他们也只会在他们认为利润足够的情况下才会增加红利。

股息的增加表明，收入在中期时已经转移到一个更高的水平，红利减少就表明该公司的问题很可能在以后的几年会继续存在。

该机制也解释了为什么价格波动在横断式的比较中是如此重要的一个因素。

如果价格波动是作为未来收益的不确定性的一个标志，那么它和红利很强的负相关就意味着管理者必须尽可能的使红利保持在低水平以避免在低利润情况下不得不再减少它。

因此，虽然机制可能与想象的经典信号模型不同，股利的变化可以很大。

探究这个假说需要更多的样品，而且对其他不同的监管环境的国家来说，可能是未来研究的一个有趣的领域。

出处：博格丹·丝塔克斯克，《瑞士的股利政策》，投资组合管理（2006）20：153-183。