股利政策【外文翻译】

外文文献翻译译文
一、外文原文
原文：
Dividend policy
Profitable companies regularly face three important questions: (1) How much of its free cash flow should it pass on to shareholders? (2) Should it provide this cash to shareholders by raising the dividend or by repurchasing stock? (3) Should it maintain a stable, consistent payment policy, or should it let the payments vary as conditions change?
When deciding how much cash to distribute to shareholders, finance manager must keep in mind that the firm’s objective is to max imize shareholder value. Consequently, the target pay rate ratio —define as the percentage of net income to be paid out as cash dividends —should be based in large part on investors’ preference for dividends versus capital gains: do investors prefer (1) to have the firm distribute income as cash dividends or (2) to have it either repurchase stock or else plow the earnings back into the business, both of which should result in capital gains? This preference can be considered in terms of the constant growth stock valuation model:g
D S -K =P 1^ If the company increases the payout ration, the raises 1D .This increase in the numerator, taken alone, would cause the stock price to rise. However, if 1D is raised, then less money will be available for reinvestment, that will cause the expected growth rate to decline, and that will tend to lower the stock ’s price. Thus, any change in payout policy will have two opposing effects. Therefore, t he firm’s optimal dividend policy must strike a balance between current dividends and future growth so to maximize the stock price. In this section, we examine three theories of investor preference: (1)the dividend irrelevance theory, (2)the "bird-in-the-hand" theory ,and(3)
the tax preference theory.
DIVIDEND IRRELEV ANCE THEORY
It has been argued that dividend policy has no effect on either the price of a firm’s stock or its cost of capital. If dividend policy has no significant effects, then it would be irrelevance .The principal proponents of dividend irrelevance theory are Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani(MM).They argued that the firm’s is determined only by its basic earning power and its business risk. In other words, MM argued that the value of firm depends only on the income produced by its assets, not on how this income is split between dividends and retained earnings.
To understand MM’s argument that dividend policy is irrelevance, recognize that any shareholder can in theory construct his or her own dividend policy .If investors could buy and sell shares and thus create their own dividend policy without incurring costs, then the firm’s dividend policy would truly be irrelevant. Note, though, that investors who want additional dividends must incur brokerage cost to sell shares, and investors who do not want dividends must first pay taxes on the unwanted dividends and then incur brokerage cost to purchase shares with the after-tax dividends. Since taxes and brokerage costs certainly exist, dividend policy may well be relevant.
In developing their dividend theory, MM made a number of assumptions especially the absence of taxes and brokerage costs. Obviously, tax and brokerage costs do exist, so the MM irrelevance theory may not be true. However, MM argued that all economic theories are based on simplifying assumptions, and that the validity of a theory must be judged by empirical test, not by the realism of its assumptions.
BIRD-IN-THE-HAND THEORY
The principal conclusions of MM’s dividend irrelevance theory is that dividend policy does not affect the required rate of return on equity, Ks. This conclusion has been hotly debated in the academic circles .In particular, Myron Gordon and John Lintner argued that Ks decreases as the dividend payout is increase because investor are less certain of receiving the capital gains which are supposed to result from retaining earnings than they are of receiving dividend payments
MM disagreed .They argued that Ks independent of dividend policy, which
implies that investors are indifferent between D1/P0 and g and, hence, between dividends and capital gains. MM called the Gordon-Lintner argument the bird-in-the-hand fallacy because, in MM’s view, most investors plan to reinvest their dividends in the stock of the same or similar firms, and, in any event, the riskiness of the firm’s cash flows to investors in the long run is determined by the riskiness of operating cash flows, not by dividend payout policy.
TAX PREFERENCE THEORY
There are three tax-related reasons for thinking that investors might prefer a low dividend payout to a high payout: (1) Recall from Chapter II that long-term capital gains are taxed at a rate of 20 percent, whereas dividend income is taxed at effective rates which go up to 39.6 percent. Therefore, wealthy investors might prefer to have companies retain and plow earnings back into the business. Earnings growth would presumably lead to stock prices increases, and thus low- taxed capital gains would be substituted for higher-taxed dividends. (2)Taxes are not paid on the gains until a stock is sold. Due to time value effects, a dollar of taxes paid in the future has a lower effective cost than a dollar paid today. (3) If a stock is held by someone until he or she dies, no capital gains tax is due at all-the beneficiaries who receive the stock can use the stock’s value on the death day as their cost basis and thus completely escape the capital gains tax.
Because of these tax advantages, investors may prefer to have companies retain most of their earnings. IF so, investors would be willing to pay more for low-payout companies than for otherwise similar high- payout companies.
There three theories offer contradictory advice to corporate managers, so which, if any, should we believe? The most logical way to proceed is to test the theories empirically. Many such tests have been conducted, but their results have been unclear. There are two reasons for this(1)For a valid statistical test, things other than dividend policy must be held constant; that is, the sample companies must differ only in their dividend policies, and(2)we must be able to measure with a high degree of accuracy each firm’s cost of equity. Neither of these two conditions holds: We cannot find a set of publicly owned firms that differ only in their dividend policies, nor can we obtain
precise estimates of the cost of equity.
Therefore, no one can establish a clear relationship between dividend policy and the cost of equity. Investors in the aggregate cannot be seen to uniformly prefer either higher or lower dividends. Nevertheless, individual investors do have strong preferences. Some prefer high dividends, while others prefer all capital gains. These differences among in dividends help explain why it is difficult to reach any definitive conclusions regarding the optimal dividend payout. Even so ,both evidence and logic suggest that investors prefer firms that follow a stable, predictable dividend policy.
Because we discuss how dividend policy is set in practice, we must examine two other theoretical issues that could affect our view toward dividend policy: (1)the information content, or signaling, hypothesis and(2) The clientele effects. MM argued that investors’reactions to change in dividend policy do not necessarily show that investors prefer dividends to retained earnings. Rather, they argued that price change following dividend actions simply indicate that there is an important information, or signaling, content in dividend announcements.
The clientele effects to the extent that stockholders can switch, a firm can change from one dividend payout policy to another and then let stockholders who do not like the new policy sell to other investors who do. However, frequent switching would be inefficient because of(1)brokerage costs,(2)the likelihood that stockholders who are selling will have to pay capital gains taxes, and (3) a possible shortage of investors who like the firm’s newly adopted dividend policy. Thus, management should be hesitant to change its dividend policy, because a change might cause current stockholders to sell their stock, forcing the stock price down. Such a price decline might be temporary, but it might also be permanent if few new investors are attracted by the new dividend policy, then the stock price would remain depressed. Of course, the new policy might attract an even larger clientele than the firm had before, in which case the stock price would rise.
In many ways, our discussion of dividend policy parallels our discussion of capital structure: we presented the relevant theories and issues, and we listed some additional factors that influence dividend policy, but we did not come up with any
hard-and-fast guidelines that manager can follow. It should be apparent from our discussion that dividend policy decisions are exercises in informed judgment, not decisions that can be based on precise mathematical model.
In practice, dividend policy is not an independent decision –the dividend decisions is made jointly with capital structure and capital budgeting decisions. The underlying reason for this joint decisions process is asymmetric information, which influences managerial actions in two ways:
1, In general, managers do not want to issue new common stock. First, new common stock involves issuance cost -- - commissions, fees, and so on-and those costs can be avoided by using retained earnings to finance the firm’s equity needs. Also, asymmetric information causes investors to view common stock issues as negative signals and thus lowers expectations regard ing the firm’s future prospects. The end result is that the announcement of a new stock issue usually leads to a decrease in the stock prices. Considering the total costs involved, including both issuance and asymmetric information costs, managers strongly prefer to use retained earnings as their primary source of new equity.
2, Dividend changes provide signal about managers’ beliefs as to their firms’ future prospects, Thus, dividend reductions, Or worse yet, omissions, generally have a significant negative effect on a firm’s stock price . Since managers recog nize this, they try to set dollar dividends low enough so that there is only a remote chance that the dividend will have to be reduce in the future. Of course, unexpectedly large dividend increases can be used to provide positive signals. the actual payout ratio in any.
The dividend decision is made during the planning process, so there is uncertainty about future investment opportunities and operating cash flows. Thus, the actual payout ratio in any year will probably be above or below the firm’s long-range target. However, the dollar dividend should be maintained, or increase as planned policy simply cannot be maintained. A steady or increasing steam of dividends over the long run signals that the firm’s financial condition is under control. Further, investors uncertain is decreased by stable dividend, so a steady dividend stream
reduces the negative effect of a stock issue, should one become absolutely necessary.
In general, firms with superior investment opportunities should set lower payouts, hence retain more earnings, than firms with poor investment opportunities. The degree of uncertainty also influences the decision. If there is a great deal of uncertainty in the forecasts of free cash flows, which are defined here as the firm’s operating cash flows minus mandatory equity investments, then it is best to be conservative and to set a lower current dollar dividend. Also, firms with postponable investment opportunities can afford to set a higher dollar dividend, because in times of stress investments can be postponed for a year or two, thus increasing the cash available for dividends. Finally, firms whose cost of capital is largely unaffected by change in the debt ratio can also afford to set a higher payout ratio, because they can, in times of stress, more easily issue additional debt to maintain the capital budgeting program without having to cut dividends or issue stock.
Firms have only one opportunity to set the opportunity payment from scratch. Therefore, today’s dividend decisions are constrained by policies that were set in the past, hence setting a policy for the next five years necessarily begins with a review of the current situation. Although we have outlined a rational process for managers to use when setting their firms’ dividend policies, dividend policy still remains one of the most judgmental decisions that firms must make. For this reason, dividend policy is always set by the board of directors the financial staff analyzes the situation and makes a recommendation, but the board makes the final decision.
Source: Eugene F. Brigham. Joel F.Houston, 2004. “Fundamentals of financial”Aril,pp.648-671.
二、翻译文章
译文：
股利政策
盈利的公司常常面临三个重要问题：（1）自由现金流量有多少应该分配给股东？（2）怎么样吧这些现金分配给股东，是通过增发股利还是回购本公司股票？
（3）需要保持一个不变的股利支付政策，还是让股利支付随着各年度的情况不同而不同？
当财务经理决定应该付多少现金给股东时，他一定要记住，公司的目标是股东价值最大化，目标支付率作为现金股利支付的净收益占总收益的百分比，应该是根据投资者更偏好的股利还是资本利得来决定。

投资者是偏好（1）以现金股利形式分配收益；还是偏好（2）回购股票或者吧收益重新投资到公司？这两者都会导致资本利得。

这方面的偏好可以通个稳定增产的股票价值评估模型来考虑：g
D S -K =P 1^ 如果公司增加了股利支付率就增加1D ,单独分子可能会导致股票价格上升。

然而,如果1D 提高了,就会减少钱用在再投资，会引起预期增长率下降,那就有可能降低股票的价格。

因此,股利政策有任何改变将有两个相反的结果。

所以,公司最优股利政策是必须在现在行使的股利和未来增长之间取得一个平衡，使股票价格达到最高。

在这一部分文献中，我们将分析评价了投资者偏好的三个理论：（1）股利无关理论；（2）“一鸟在手”理论；（3）税收偏好理论。

1、股利无关理论
有很多人认为，股利分配政策对公司股票价值和资本成本都是没有任何影响。

如果股利政策没有显著的影响，那这个股利政策就是不相关。

股利无关理论的主要提出的人是默顿•H •米勒和佛朗哥•莫迪哥莱尼。

公司价值只是由于基本盈利能力和经营风险所决定。

换一句话说，MM 理论作者认为，公司价值只是由其资产所创造的收益来决定的，而不是由于股利和留存收益之间是如何分割来决定的。

要如何理解MM 理论关于股利政策无关的观点，我们需要认识到，一个股东
在理论上都是能构建自己的股利政策。

但是如果投资者能够随意的购买或者卖出股票，他就能够实现他所期望的鼓励政策，而不用支付额外的费用。

因此，鼓励政策是不相关的。

要注意的是，那些想要得到额外股东在卖掉股票是必须支付一定的费用；而那些不想要额外股利的股东不想为那部分鼓励交税而且用税后股利购买额外的股份还得支付交易费用。

既然税收和交易费用的存在是必然的，那么鼓励政策也很可能是相关的。

在建立股利理论时，MM理论作了一系列的假设，尤其是关于不存在税收和交易费用的假设。

显然，税收和交易费用是确实存在的，因此MM股利无关理论可能是不正确的。

但是MM理论提出，所有的理论都是基于简化了的假设，理论的正确与否必须经过实践的检验，而不是其假设的真实性。

2、“一鸟在手”理论
MM股利无关理论的主要结论是：鼓励政策不影响要求的权益收益率Ks。

该观点在学术界引起广泛争论。

迈伦•林特纳就认为，随着股利支付的增加，Ks会下降，因为虽然可以假定留存收益会带来相应的资本利得，但是与得到支付的股利相比，投资者获得收益的确定性要小。

MM理论对这有反对意见。

他们认为，Ks与股利政策是没有关系的，这就说
投资者对于D
1∕P
和资本利得是没有偏好。

MM理论认为，高顿和林特纳为“一
鸟在手”理论的假象所迷惑，因为在MM理论看来，大部分投资者都打算将其股利所得再投资于同一家或类似的企业。

而且在任何情况下，对于投资者来说，从长远来看，公司现金流量的风险是由该公司的经营现金流量风险来决定的，却不是由股利政策决定的。

3、税收偏好理论
从所得税方面来考虑，投资者可能会偏好较低的股利支付率，这样说的理由有三个。

（1）第二章说到长期资本利得要缴纳20%的所得税，而股利收益的税率却高达39.6%。

所以，有钱的投资者可能会更加偏好于公司留存收益而且将其投资于公司业务，而不是将收益用于发放股利。

股利收益增长会导致股价上涨，从而较低税负的资本利得会替代较高税负的股利。

（2）资本利得直到股票被卖掉以后才需要支付所得税。

由于资金时间价值的作用，未来所支付的一美元的所得税比现在支付的一美元的所得税的价值更加低。

（3）如果某人持有股票直到死亡，
那就根本不会有资本利得税。

接受股票受益人可以把股票原持有人去世那天的股票价值作为其成本基础，从而可以完全避免资本利得所要交的赋税。

由于这种税收优势，投资者会愿意保留公司其绝大部分收益。

如果是这样，那么相对于其他方面类似而支付率高的公司而言，投资者将更加愿意支付率低的公司的股票付更加高的价钱。

这三个理论为公司经理人提供了有矛盾的建议,因此，如果理论可信的话，我们应该相信哪种理论?最合理的方法是利用经验来检测这3个理论。

这方面的研究已经展开,但他们的结果还不太清楚。

有两个原因(1)为一个有效的统计来说,除了股利政策，其他事情必须保持不变;也就是说,样本公司必须只是股利政策方面有所差异。

(2)我们必须能够准确地测量每个公司的资本成本。

这两种情况没有一个能够成立:我们不能发现一家上市公司只在股利政策方面有差异,也无法得到准确的公司资本成本的估计。

因此,没有人能建立了一个股利政策和资本成本间清晰的关系。

投资者作为一个整体，不能看出统一的选更高或更低的股利偏好。

然而,个人投资者就有较强的喜好。

一般投资者喜欢高额股利,而另一些则喜欢所有的收益都是资本利得。

这些差异有助于解释为什么很难达成任何确切的最优股利支付率的结论。

甚至,证据和逻辑显示,投资者喜欢投资于一个稳定、可预测股利政策的对公司。

在碰到现实中如何制定股利政策之前，我们必须考虑另外两个理论问题，因为这会影响我们对待股利政策的观点：（1）信息内容假设；（2）委托人效应。

MM 认为投资者对股利政策的反应并不能够表明投资者更喜欢通过股利来获得收益。

而他们认为，股价随着股利波动仅仅表明，在宣布股利政策时有重要的信息,或者信号内容。

委托人效应一定意义说，股东可以选择公司的。

从一个股利政策转变到另一种股利支付政策时,允许不喜欢这项新政策的股东卖股票给其他投资者。

然而, 频繁的转换会导致无效率。

因为：(1)存在破产成本,(2) 销售股票的股东可能必须要缴纳资本利得税，(3) 可能喜欢公司新的股支付利政策的投资者出现短缺。

所以,管理层在改变公司的股利支付政策要慎重,因为这变化可能会导致对现有股东出售所持有的股票,迫使股票价格下降。

这样的价格下降可能暂时,但它可能也被永久，如果一少部分投资者被新股利支付政策的吸引,那么股票价格仍将持
续低落。

当然,新政策也可能吸引比公司更大的委托人,在这种情况下,股票价格会上升。

在很多方面，我们关于股利政策的讨论与资本结构的讨论是分不开的：我们会陈述相关的理论和问题，也会列出其他一些影响股利政策的因素，但是我们不会给出管理层可以遵循的任何硬性指标。

显然，在我们讨论中可以看到，股利政策决策时根据众多信息进行判断的活动，而不是能够基于精确的数学的模型来制作的决策。

在现实中，股利政策不是一个独立的决策——股利政策的制定与资本结构和资本预算决策时密不可分的。

造成这个原因是不对称的信息，信息的不对称在以下两个方面影响管理决策：
1、一般来说，管理者不愿意发行新股，首先，新股会导致发行费用——佣金、薪酬等——通过留存收益增加公司的权益资本，就可以避免这些费用。

其次，不对称的信息使投资者认为，发行新股是一种负面信号，从而降低他们对公司未来前景的预期。

最终的结果是宣布发行新股通常会导致股价的下跌。

考虑到相关的成本，包括发行费用和不对称信息的成本，经理更偏向于使用留存收益作为新权益资本的主要来源。

2、股利变化是一种信号，反映了经理对公司未来前景的看法。

因此，股利减少，或者更严重的是不支付股利，通常对公司的股价产生重大的负面影响。

由于管理者认识到这一点，他们往往努力将股利保持在一个足够低的水平，这样在将来不得不降低股利的可能性就会相当地小。

当然，出乎众人意料地大幅度提高股利可以作为一种正面信号。

股利政策市在计划过程中制定的，因此未来的投资机会和经营现金流量存在不确定性。

因而，每年实际的股利支付率很可能会低于或者高于公司的长期目标。

但是，分配的股利额应当维持在一定水平或按计划增长，除非公司的财务状况恶化到不能维持的程度。

长期保持稳定或稳步增长的股利支付额意味着公司的财务状况控制得很好。

进一步说，稳定的股利可以缓解投资者的不确定心里预期，因而可以减少发行新股的负面影响，因此绝对是必需的。

一般来说,公司有优良的投资机会应该降低股利支付率,因此，留存收益会比那些投资机会差的公司多。

不确定性程度也影响这一决定。

如果自由现金流量预
测有很大的不确定性,在这里自由现金流量是公司的经营现金流量减去强制性的权益资本投资，最好是要保守一些，即设定较低的股利支付额。

同时,公司稳定的投资机会是可以延期的，那么公司可以设定较高的股利支付率。

因为在困难时期,投资可能延期一年或两年,从而增加可供股利的现金。

最后,如果公司的资本成本会受到负债比率很大程度上影响,公司可以提出了更高的股利支付率,因为他们在受到压力下,更容易更多的债务资本来维持资本预算项目，而不是削减股息或发行股票。

公司只有一次机会设定股利支付额。

因此,现在的股利政策受过去制定的政策的限定,因此要设定设置接下来的5年的政策,一定首先回顾相关现状开始。

尽管我们描绘了经理设定他们时所使用的公司的红利政策的合理过程,股利政策仍然是公司必须做的最需要判断力的决策。

因为这个原因,股利政策总是由董事会决定，财务人员进行了分析现状后提建议,但是会由董事会作出最后的决定。

出处:[美]尤金F.布里格姆，乔尔F.休斯敦,《财务管理基础》，中信出版社.2004（8）：23-25.。