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The Economic Effects of Dividend Taxation

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Author Info
James M. Poterba
Lawrence H. Summers

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Abstract

This paper tests several competing hypotheses about the economic effects of dividend taxation. It employs British data on security returns, dividend payout rates, and corporate investment, because unlike the United States, Britain has experienced several major dividend tax reforms in the last three decades. These tax changes provide an ideal natural experiment for analyzing the effects of dividend taxes. We compare three different views of how dividend taxes affect decisions by firms and their shareholders. We reject the"tax capitalization" view that dividend taxes are non-distortionary lump sum taxes on the owners of corporate capital. We also reject the hypothes is that firms pay dividends because marginal investors are effectively untaxed. We find that the traditional view that dividend taxes constitute a "double-tax" on corporate capital income is most consistent with our empirical evidence. Our results suggest that dividend taxes reduce corporate investment and exacerbate distortions in the intersectoral and intertemporal allocation of capital.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 1353.

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Date of creation: Jun 1985
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1353

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  1. Elton, Edwin & Gruber, Martin & Rentzler, Joel, 1983. "A simple examination of the empirical relationship between dividend yields and deviations from the CAPM," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 135-146, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Merton H. Miller & Franco Modigliani, 1961. "Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34, pages 411. [Downloadable!]
  3. Lewellen, Wilbur G, et al, 1978. "Some Direct Evidence on the Dividend Clientele Phenomenon," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(5), pages 1385-99, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Fullerton, Don, et al, 1981. "Corporate Tax Integration in the United States: A General Equilibrium Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 677-91, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Fama, Eugene F, et al, 1969. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Sudipto Bhattacharya, 1979. "Imperfect Information, Dividend Policy, and "The Bird in the Hand" Fallacy," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 259-270, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. 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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  8. Auerbach, Alan J, 1983. "Taxation, Corporate Financial Policy and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 905-40, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Feldstein, Martin & Dicks-Mireaux, Louis & Poterba, James, 1983. "The effective tax rate and the pretax rate of return," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 129-158, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1983. "Some aspects of the taxation of capital gains," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 257-294, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Long, John Jr., 1978. "The market valuation of cash dividends : A case to consider," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2-3), pages 235-264. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Feldstein, Martin S, 1978. "The Welfare Cost of Capital Income Taxation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(2), pages S29-51, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Tobin, James, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 15-29, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Miller, Merton H. & Scholes, Myron S., 1978. "Dividends and taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 333-364, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Feenberg, Daniel, 1981. "Does the investment interest limitation explain the existence of dividends?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 265-269, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Auerbach, Alan J., 1983. "Stockholder tax rates and firm attributes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 107-127, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Jerry R. Green, 1980. "Taxation and the Ex-Dividend Day Behavior of Common Stock Prices," NBER Working Papers 0496, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Auerbach, Alan J, 1979. "Wealth Maximization and the Cost of Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 433-46, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Miller, Merton H, 1977. "Debt and Taxes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 261-75, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Gordon, Roger H. & Bradford, David F., 1980. "Taxation and the stock market valuation of capital gains and dividends : Theory and emphirical results," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 109-136, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-24, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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