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Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut

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Author Info
Raj Chetty
Emmanuel Saez

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of dividend taxation on corporate behavior using the large tax cut on individual dividend income enacted in 2003. We document a 20 percent increase in dividend payments by nonfinancial, nonutility publicly traded corporations following the tax cut. An unusually large number of firms initiated or increased regular dividend payments in the year after the reform. As a result, the number of firms paying dividends began to increase in 2003 after a continuous decline for more than two decades. Firms with high levels of nontaxable institutional ownership did not change payout policies, supporting the causality of the tax cut in increasing aggregate dividend payments. The response to the tax cut was strongest in firms with strong principals whose tax incentives changed (those with large taxable institutional owners or independent directors with large share holdings), and in firms where agents had stronger incentives to respond (high share ownership and low options ownership among top executives). Hence, principal-agent issues appear to play an important role in corporate responses to taxation. © 2005 MIT Press

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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 120 (2005)
Issue (Month): 3 (August)
Pages: 791-833
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:120:y:2005:i:3:p:791-833

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1994. "A Reconsideration of Investment Behavior Using Tax Reforms as Natural Experiments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1994-2), pages 1-74. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-29, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2001. "Disappearing dividends: changing firm characteristics or lower propensity to pay?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 3-43, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett, 2000. "On the Marginal Source of Investment Funds," NBER Working Papers 7821, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Bernhardt, Dan & Douglas, Alan & Robertson, Fiona, 2005. "Testing dividend signaling models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 77-98, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Dividends, Share Repurchases, and the Substitution Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1649-1684, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Raghuram Rajan & Henry Servaes & Luigi Zingales, . "The Cost of Diversity: The Diversification Discount and Inefficient Investment," CRSP working papers 463, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
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  8. Jennifer Dlugosz & Rudiger Fahlenbrach & Paul Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2004. "Large Blocks of Stock: Prevalence, Size, and Measurement," NBER Working Papers 10671, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Roger H. Gordon & Laura Kalambokidis & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "Do We Now Collect Any Revenue From Taxing Capital Income?," NBER Working Papers 9477, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Bradford, David F., 1981. "The incidence and allocation effects of a tax on corporate distributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-22, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "A Catering Theory of Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1125-1165, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Fenn, George W. & Liang, Nellie, 2001. "Corporate payout policy and managerial stock incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 45-72, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda & Skinner, Douglas J., 2000. "Special dividends and the evolution of dividend signaling," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 309-354, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Baker, Malcolm & Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2004. "Appearing and disappearing dividends: The link to catering incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 271-288, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Austan Goolsbee, 2002. "The Impact and Inefficiency of the Corporate Income Tax: Evidence from State Organizational Form Data," NBER Working Papers 9141, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2000. "Agency Problems and Dividend Policies around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 1-33, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1995. "A Reconsideration of Investment Behavior Using Tax Reforms as Natural Experiments," NBER Reprints 1946, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. David S. Scharfstein & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets: Divisional Rent-Seeking and Inefficient Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2537-2564, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Gordon, Roger H. & Lee, Young, 2001. "Do taxes affect corporate debt policy? Evidence from U.S. corporate tax return data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 195-224, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Goolsbee, Austan, 1998. "Taxes, organizational form, and the deadweight loss of the corporate income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 143-152, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Franklin Allen & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Payout Policy," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 01-21, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania. [Downloadable!]
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    • Allen, Franklin & Michaely, Roni, 2003. "Payout policy," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 337-429 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Rolf Aaberge and Magne Mogstad, 2007. "On the Definition and Measurement of Chronic Poverty," Discussion Papers 497, Research Department of Statistics Norway. [Downloadable!]
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