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Dividend Taxes and Share Prices: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

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Author Info
William M. Gentry
Deen Kemsley
Christopher J. Mayer

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Abstract

Financial economists have debated the impact of dividend taxes on firm valuation for decades, but existing empirical evidence is mixed. In this study, we avoid certain complications inherent in previous empirical work by exploiting institutional characteristics of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). For REITs, dividend policy is largely non-discretionary, share repurchases are not tax advantaged relative to dividends, and the market value of a firm's assets is relatively transparent to investors. In addition, REITs are exempt from corporate taxes, so their tax deductions flow directly to shareholders as reductions in dividend taxes. Within this environment, we regress the market value of a REIT's equity on the market value of its assets and its tax basis in assets, which creates tax deductions that lower future dividend taxes. We find that tax basis has a positive effect on firm value, which suggests that investors capitalize future dividend taxes into share prices.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8486.

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Date of creation: Sep 2001
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8486

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure

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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.:
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    Other versions:
  2. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J, 1970. "Marginal Stockholder Tax Rates and the Clientele Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(1), pages 68-74, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  5. Litzenberger, Robert H & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1982. " The Effects of Dividends on Common Stock Prices: Tax Effects or Information Effects?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 37(2), pages 429-43, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Blume, Marshall E, 1980. "Stock Returns and Dividend Yields: Some More Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(4), pages 567-77, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Cutler, David M, 1988. "Tax Reform and the Stock Market: An Asset Price Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1107-17, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Dean R. Hyslop & Guido W. Imbens, 2000. "Bias from Classical and Other Forms of Measurement Error," NBER Technical Working Papers 0257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. 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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  16. Malkiel, Burton G, 1977. "The Valuation of Closed-End Investment-Company Shares," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(3), pages 847-59, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Miller, Merton H & Scholes, Myron S, 1982. "Dividends and Taxes: Some Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1118-41, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Andy Naranjo & M. Nimalendran & Mike Ryngaert, 2000. "Time Variation of Ex-Dividend Day Stock Returns and Corporate Dividend Capture: A Reexamination," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2357-2372, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, 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. Nam, Jouahn & Wang, Jun & Zhang, Ge, 2004. "The impact of the dividend tax cut and managerial stock holdings on corporate dividend policy," Working Papers 2004-09, University of New Orleans, Department of Economics and Finance. [Downloadable!]
  2. Huizinga, Harry & Voget, Johannes & Wagner, Wolf, 2009. "International Taxation and Takeover Premiums in Cross-border M&As," CEPR Discussion Papers 7182, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Erik Devos & Seow Ong & Andrew Spieler, 2007. "Analyst Activity and Firm Value: Evidence from the REIT Sector," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 333-356, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Mihir A. Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2005. "Corporate Tax Avoidance and Firm Value," NBER Working Papers 11241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. William M. Gentry & Charles M. Jones & Christopher J. Mayer, 2004. "Do Stock Prices Really Reflect Fundamental Values? The Case of REITs," NBER Working Papers 10850, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Qiang Li & Hua Sun & Seow Ong, 2006. "REIT Splits and Dividend Changes: Tests of Signaling and Information Substitutability," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 127-150, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James Payne & George Waters, 2007. "Have Equity REITs Experienced Periodically Collapsing Bubbles?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 207-224, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Zhilan Feng & Chinmoy Ghosh & C. Sirmans, 2007. "CEO Involvement in Director Selection: Implications for REIT Dividend Policy," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 385-410, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. William M. Gentry & Christopher J. Mayer, 2003. "What Can We Learn About the Sensitivity of Investment to Stock Prices with a Better Measure of Tobin's q?," Department of Economics Working Papers 196, Department of Economics, Williams College. [Downloadable!]
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