IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16129.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dividends, Share Repurchases, and Tax Clienteles: Evidence from the 2003 Reductions in Shareholder Taxes

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Blouin
  • Jana Raedy
  • Douglas Shackelford

Abstract

This paper jointly evaluates firm-level changes in investor composition and shareholder distributions following a 2003 reduction in the dividend and capital gains tax rates for individuals. We find that directors and officers, but not other individual investors, rebalanced their portfolios to maximize after-tax returns in light of the new tax rules. We also find that firms adjusted their distribution policy (specifically, dividends versus share repurchases) in a manner consistent with the altered tax incentives for individual investors. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to employ simultaneous equations to estimate both investor and managerial responses to the 2003 rate reductions. We find that estimating a system of equations leads to different inferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Blouin & Jana Raedy & Douglas Shackelford, 2010. "Dividends, Share Repurchases, and Tax Clienteles: Evidence from the 2003 Reductions in Shareholder Taxes," NBER Working Papers 16129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16129
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16129.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2001. "Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(1), pages 67-79, March.
    2. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2005. "Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 791-833.
    3. Alan D. Viard, 2009. "Tax Policy Lessons from the 2000s," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 42717, September.
    4. Bagwell, Laurie Simon & Shoven, John B, 1989. "Cash Distributions to Shareholders," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 129-140, Summer.
    5. Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Dividends, Share Repurchases, and the Substitution Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1649-1684, August.
    6. Feldstein, Martin & Green, Jerry, 1983. "Why Do Companies Pay Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 17-30, March.
    7. Roger Gordon & Martin Dietz, 2006. "Dividends and Taxes," NBER Working Papers 12292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jeffrey R. Brown & Nellie Liang & Scott Weisbenner, 2007. "Executive Financial Incentives and Payout Policy: Firm Responses to the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1935-1965, August.
    9. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2007. "An Agency Theory of Dividend Taxation," NBER Working Papers 13538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Mihir A Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2011. "Dividend Taxes and International Portfolio Choice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 266-284, February.
    11. Jacob Boudoukh & Roni Michaely & Matthew Richardson & Michael R. Roberts, 2007. "On the Importance of Measuring Payout Yield: Implications for Empirical Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 877-915, April.
    12. Brav, Alon & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Michaely, Roni, 2005. "Payout policy in the 21st century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 483-527, September.
    13. Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett, 2005. "The 2003 Dividend Tax Cuts and the Value of the Firm: An Event Study," NBER Working Papers 11449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jagannathan, Murali & Stephens, Clifford P. & Weisbach, Michael S., 2000. "Financial flexibility and the choice between dividends and stock repurchases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 355-384, September.
    15. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    16. Auerbach,Alan J. & Hines, Jr.,James R. & Slemrod,Joel (ed.), 2007. "Taxing Corporate Income in the 21st Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521870221.
    17. Jennifer L. Blouin & Jana Smith Raedy & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2003. "Capital Gains Taxes and Equity Trading: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 611-651, September.
    18. Merton H. Miller & Franco Modigliani, 1961. "Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34, pages 411-411.
    19. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2006. "The Effects of the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut on Corporate Behavior: Interpreting the Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 124-129, May.
    20. Jennifer Blouin & Linda Krull, 2009. "Bringing It Home: A Study of the Incentives Surrounding the Repatriation of Foreign Earnings Under the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 1027-1059, September.
    21. Alon Brav & John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey & Roni Michaely, 2008. "Managerial Response to the May 2003 Dividend Tax Cut," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 611-624, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alzahrani, Mohammed & Lasfer, Meziane, 2012. "Investor protection, taxation, and dividends," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 745-762.
    2. Stimmelmayr, Michael & Liberini, Federica & Russo, Antonio, 2015. "The Role of Toeholds and Capital Gain Taxes for Corporate Acquisition Strategies," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112926, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Boulton, Thomas J. & Braga-Alves, Marcus V. & Shastri, Kuldeep, 2012. "Payout policy in Brazil: Dividends versus interest on equity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 968-979.
    4. Danny Yagan, 2015. "Capital Tax Reform and the Real Economy: The Effects of the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3531-3563, December.
    5. Hanlon, Michelle & Hoopes, Jeffrey L., 2014. "What do firms do when dividend tax rates change? An examination of alternative payout responses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 105-124.
    6. Daeyong Lee, 2017. "Dividend taxation and household dividend portfolio decisions: evidence from the U.S. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 723-737, February.
    7. Chongyang Chen & Zhonglan Dai & Douglas Shackelford & Harold Zhang, 2011. "Does Financial Constraint Affect Shareholder Taxes and the Cost of Equity Capital?," NBER Working Papers 17169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Marko Koethenbuerger & Michael E Stimmelmayr, 2022. "The Efficiency Costs of Dividend Taxation with Managerial Firms," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 1123-1149.
    9. Sanjay Dhamija & Ravinder Kumar Arora, 2019. "Impact of Dividend Tax Change on the Payout Policy of Indian Companies," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 20(5), pages 1282-1291, October.
    10. Adrien Matray & Charles Boissel, 2020. "Higher Dividend Taxes, No Problem! Evidence from Taxing Entrepreneurs in France," Working Papers 276, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    11. Michelle Hanlon & Jeffrey L. Hoopes & Joel Slemrod, 2019. "Tax Reform Made Me Do It!," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 33-80.
    12. Booth, Laurence & Zhou, Jun, 2017. "Dividend policy: A selective review of results from around the world," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-15.
    13. Jacob, Martin & Alstadsæter, Annette, 2013. "Payout policies of privately held firms: Flexibility and the role of income taxes," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 152, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    14. Jesse Edgerton, 2013. "Four facts about dividend payouts and the 2003 tax cut," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(5), pages 769-784, October.
    15. Thomas Bauer & Thomas Kourouxous & Peter Krenn, 2018. "Taxation and agency conflicts between firm owners and managers: a review," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 11(1), pages 33-76, February.
    16. Laura Kawano, 2014. "The Dividend Clientele Hypothesis: Evidence from the 2003 Tax Act," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 114-136, February.
    17. Chanchal Chatterjee & Paromita Dutta, 2017. "Price Behaviour Around Dividend Announcements in the Indian Equity Market in the Existence of Corporate Dividend Tax," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 18(2), pages 402-415, April.
    18. Maier, Christoph & Schanz, Deborah, 2017. "Towards neutral distribution taxes and vanishing tax effects in the European Union," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 215, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jennifer L. Blouin & Jana Smith Raedy & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2007. "Did Firms Substitute Dividends for Share Repurchases after the 2003 Reductions in Shareholder Tax Rates?," NBER Working Papers 13601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Chris Mitchell, 2019. "The Lock-In Effect and the Corporate Payout Puzzle," ISER Discussion Paper 1070, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    3. Jacob, Martin & Alstadsæter, Annette, 2013. "Payout policies of privately held firms: Flexibility and the role of income taxes," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 152, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    4. Alzahrani, Mohammed & Lasfer, Meziane, 2012. "Investor protection, taxation, and dividends," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 745-762.
    5. Bradley Benson & Travis Davidson & Hui James & Hongxia Wang, 2022. "Board busyness and corporate payout: are all busy directors the same?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(3), pages 3711-3759, September.
    6. Ye, Dezhu & Deng, Jie & Liu, Yi & Szewczyk, Samuel H. & Chen, Xiao, 2019. "Does board gender diversity increase dividend payouts? Analysis of global evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-26.
    7. Hossain, Ashrafee Tanvir & Hossain, Takdir & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2021. "Political corruption and corporate payouts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    8. Kulchania, Manoj, 2013. "Catering driven substitution in corporate payouts," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 180-195.
    9. Zhe An & Wenlian Gao & Donghui Li & Dezhu Ye, 2022. "Dividend payouts, cash‐flow uncertainty and the role of institutions," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1356-1390, July.
    10. Batabyal, Sourav & Robinson, Richard, 2017. "Capital change and stability when dividends convey signals," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 158-167.
    11. Amy Dittmar, 2008. "Corporate Cash Policy and How to Manage it with Stock Repurchases," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 20(3), pages 22-34, June.
    12. Lily Nguyen & Le Vu & Xiangkang Yin, 2021. "Share repurchases and firm innovation," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1665-1695, April.
    13. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Dividend and Corporate Taxation in an Agency Model of the Firm," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 1-31, August.
    14. Desai, Mihir A. & Jin, Li, 2011. "Institutional tax clienteles and payout policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 68-84, April.
    15. Annette Alstadsæter & Erik Fjærli, 2009. "Neutral taxation of shareholder income? Corporate responses to an announced dividend tax," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(4), pages 571-604, August.
    16. Chris Mitchell, 2019. "The Lock-In Effect and the Corporate Payout Puzzle," ISER Discussion Paper 1070r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised Aug 2021.
    17. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    18. Buchanan, Bonnie G. & Cao, Cathy Xuying & Liljeblom, Eva & Weihrich, Susan, 2017. "Uncertainty and firm dividend policy—A natural experiment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 179-197.
    19. Paul Tanyi & David B. Smith & Xiaoyan Cheng, 2021. "Does firm payout policy affect shareholders’ dissatisfaction with directors?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 279-320, July.
    20. Brav, Alon & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Michaely, Roni, 2005. "Payout policy in the 21st century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 483-527, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16129. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.