IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v28y2014icp1-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Direct evidence of dividend tax clienteles

Author

Listed:
  • Dahlquist, Magnus
  • Robertsson, Göran
  • Rydqvist, Kristian

Abstract

The paper is the first to evaluate the dividend tax clientele hypothesis using a data set of all domestic stock portfolios in the market. We find that investment funds that face a higher effective tax rate on dividend income than on capital gains tilt their portfolios away from dividend-paying stocks. These investors consequently earn a dividend yield that is about 35 basis points lower than that of investors who are tax neutral between dividends and capital gains (pension funds, unit-linked insurance, life insurance). Consistent with tax rules and charter provisions, we also find that private corporations prefer growth stocks, that foundations exhibit strong dividend preferences, and that partnerships rarely hold stocks portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahlquist, Magnus & Robertsson, Göran & Rydqvist, Kristian, 2014. "Direct evidence of dividend tax clienteles," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-12.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:28:y:2014:i:c:p:1-12
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2014.05.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539814000462
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2014.05.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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. Dammon, Robert M & Spatt, Chester S, 1996. "The Optimal Trading and Pricing of Securities with Asymmetric Capital Gains Taxes and Transaction Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 921-952.
    3. 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.
    4. Randall Morck, 2005. "How to Eliminate Pyramidal Business Groups: The Double Taxation of Intercorporate Dividends and Other Incisive Uses of Tax Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 19, pages 135-179, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2007. "Down or Out: Assessing the Welfare Costs of Household Investment Mistakes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 707-747, October.
    6. Scholz, John Karl, 1992. "A direct examination of the dividend clientele hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 261-285, December.
    7. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim, 1986. "Asset pricing and the bid-ask spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 223-249, December.
    8. 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 1118-1141, December.
    9. Franklin Allen & Antonio E. Bernardo & Ivo Welch, 2000. "A Theory of Dividends Based on Tax Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2499-2536, December.
    10. Litzenberger, Robert H. & Ramaswamy, Krishna, 1979. "The effect of personal taxes and dividends on capital asset prices : Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 163-195, June.
    11. 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.
    12. Constantinides, George M., 1984. "Optimal stock trading with personal taxes : Implications for prices and the abnormal January returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 65-89, March.
    13. Dhaliwal, Dan S. & Erickson, Merle & Trezevant, Robert, 1999. "A Test of the Theory of Tax Clienteles for Dividend Policies," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 2), pages 179-94, June.
    14. Constantinides, George M, 1983. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Personal Tax," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(3), pages 611-636, May.
    15. Michaely, Roni & Thaler, Richard H & Womack, Kent L, 1995. "Price Reactions to Dividend Initiations and Omissions: Overreaction or Drift?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 573-608, June.
    16. Holmen, Martin & Knopf, John D. & Peterson, Stefan, 2008. "Inside shareholders' effective tax rates and dividends," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1860-1869, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Carina Selander & Magnus Wikstrom, 2009. "Taxation, Dividend Payments and Ex-Day Price-Changes," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 13(1-2), pages 135-154, March-Jun.
    19. Lewellen, Wilbur G, et al, 1978. "Some Direct Evidence on the Dividend Clientele Phenomenon," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(5), pages 1385-1399, December.
    20. Alan J. Auerbach & Mervyn A. King, 1983. "Taxation, Portfolio Choice, and Debt-Equity Ratios: A General Equilibrium Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(4), pages 587-609.
    21. Brandon Julio & David L. Ikenberry, 2004. "Reappearing Dividends," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 16(4), pages 89-100.
    22. Clemens Sialm & Laura Starks, 2012. "Mutual Fund Tax Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1397-1422, August.
    23. Michael J. Barclay & Clifford G. Holderness & Dennis P. Sheehan, 2009. "Dividends and Corporate Shareholders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2423-2455, June.
    24. Del Guercio, Diane, 1996. "The distorting effect of the prudent-man laws on institutional equity investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 31-62, January.
    25. Desai, Mihir A. & Jin, Li, 2011. "Institutional tax clienteles and payout policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 68-84, April.
    26. Joan Farre-Mensa & Roni Michaely & Martin Schmalz, 2014. "Payout Policy," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 75-134, December.
    27. Pettit, R. Richardson, 1977. "Taxes, transactions costs and the clientele effect of dividends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 419-436, December.
    28. 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 429-443, May.
    29. 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.
    30. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda & Skinner, Douglas J., 2004. "Are dividends disappearing? Dividend concentration and the consolidation of earnings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 425-456, June.
    31. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron, 1974. "The effects of dividend yield and dividend policy on common stock prices and returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, May.
    32. John R. Graham & Alok Kumar, 2006. "Do Dividend Clienteles Exist? Evidence on Dividend Preferences of Retail Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1305-1336, June.
    33. 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.
    34. Yaniv Grinstein & Roni Michaely, 2005. "Institutional Holdings and Payout Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1389-1426, June.
    35. Valery Polkovnichenko, 2005. "Household Portfolio Diversification: A Case for Rank-Dependent Preferences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1467-1502.
    36. Green, Richard C. & Rydqvist, Kristian, 1999. "Ex-day behavior with dividend preference and limitations to short-term arbitrage: the case of Swedish lottery bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 145-187, August.
    37. Dhaliwal, Dan S. & Erickson, Merle & Trezevant, Robert, 1999. "A Test of the Theory of Tax Clienteles for Dividend Policies," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 179-194, June.
    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. Nicodano, Giovanna & Regis, Luca, 2019. "A trade-off theory of ownership and capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(3), pages 715-735.
    2. Giovanna Nicodano & Luca Regis, 2014. "Complex organizations, tax policy and financial stability," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 359, Collegio Carlo Alberto, revised 2015.
    3. Giovanna Nicodano & Luca Regis, 2015. "Ownership, Taxes and Default," Working Papers 7/2015, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, revised Jul 2015.
    4. Hussein Abedi Shamsabadi & Byung S. Min & Imen Tebourbi & Mohammad Nourani, 2020. "Corporate Governance in Australia: Share Repurchases under an Imputation Tax System," Capital Markets Review, Malaysian Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 1-23.
    5. Masanori Orihara, 2023. "Election-Day Market Reactions to Tax Proposals: Evidence from a Close Vote," Working Papers 2219, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    6. Hadfi Bilel & Kouki Mondher, 2021. "What Can explain catering of dividend? Environment information and investor sentiment," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 45(3), pages 428-450, July.
    7. Kim, Jae H. & Ji, Philip Inyeob, 2015. "Significance testing in empirical finance: A critical review and assessment," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-14.
    8. Liqun Liu & Zijun Wang, 2020. "Tax avoidance and asset returns: some theoretical results on the tax clientele effects," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 41-49.
    9. Barros, Victor & Verga Matos, Pedro & Miranda Sarmento, Joaquim, 2020. "What firm’s characteristics drive the dividend policy? A mixed-method study on the Euronext stock exchange," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 365-377.
    10. Clemens Sialm & Hanjiang Zhang, 2020. "Tax‐Efficient Asset Management: Evidence from Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 735-777, April.
    11. Baker, H. Kent & De Ridder, Adri & Råsbrant, Jonas, 2020. "Investors and dividend yields," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 386-395.
    12. Martijn Boermans & Rients Galema, 2017. "Pension funds carbon footprint and investment trade-offs," DNB Working Papers 554, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    13. Chou, Robin K. & Wang, Yu-Chun & Jimmy Yang, J., 2021. "Share pledging, payout policy, and the value of cash holdings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 18-33.
    14. Liu, Yen-Yu & Lee, Pin-Sheng, 2022. "Market responses to cash dividends distributed from capital reserves," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    15. Kathryn E. Easterday & Pradyot K. Sen, 2023. "Another look at the dividend-price relationship in the accounting valuation framework," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 879-925, October.
    16. Jun, Xiao & Li, Mingsheng & Yugang, Chen, 2017. "Catering to behavioral demand for dividends and its potential agency issue," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB), pages 269-291.
    17. Barros, Victor & Verga Matos, Pedro & Miranda Sarmento, Joaquim & Rino Vieira, Pedro, 2021. "Do activist shareholders influence a manager’s decisions on a firm’s dividend policy: A mixed-method study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 387-397.
    18. Berezinets, I. & Ilina, Y. & Alekseeva, L., 2014. "Ownership structure and dividend policy: A study of Russian public companies with dual class shares," Working Papers 6384, Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University.

    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. Dahlquist, Magnus & Robertsson, Göran & Rydqvist, Kristian, 2007. "Direct Evidence of Dividend Tax Clienteles," SIFR Research Report Series 51, Institute for Financial Research.
    2. Rydqvist, Kristian & Dahlquist, Magnus & Robertsson, Göran, 2006. "Direct Evidence of Dividend Tax Clienteles," CEPR Discussion Papers 6005, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Golubov, Andrey & Lasfer, Meziane & Vitkova, Valeriya, 2020. "Active catering to dividend clienteles: Evidence from takeovers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 815-836.
    4. Clemens Sialm, 2009. "Tax Changes and Asset Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1356-1383, September.
    5. Desai, Mihir A. & Jin, Li, 2011. "Institutional tax clienteles and payout policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 68-84, April.
    6. Renneboog, Luc & Trojanowski, Grzegorz, 2011. "Patterns in payout policy and payout channel choice," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1477-1490, June.
    7. Lee, Yi-Tsung & Liu, Yu-Jane & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2006. "Taxes and dividend clientele: Evidence from trading and ownership structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 229-246, January.
    8. Clemens Sialm, 2006. "Investment Taxes and Equity Returns," NBER Working Papers 12146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Fuller, Kathleen P. & Goldstein, Michael A., 2011. "Do dividends matter more in declining markets?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 457-473, June.
    10. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    11. du Jardin, Philippe & Séverin, Eric, 2011. "Dividend policy," MPRA Paper 44382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Mori, Naoya, 2010. "Tax clientele effects of dividends under intertemporal consumption choices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1089-1097, May.
    13. Kartal Demirg ne, 2015. "Determinants of Target Dividend Payout Ratio: A Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag Analysis," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 5(2), pages 418-426.
    14. Barros, Victor & Verga Matos, Pedro & Miranda Sarmento, Joaquim, 2020. "What firm’s characteristics drive the dividend policy? A mixed-method study on the Euronext stock exchange," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 365-377.
    15. Hartzmark, Samuel M. & Solomon, David H., 2013. "The dividend month premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 640-660.
    16. Hameed, Allaudeen & Xie, Jing, 2019. "Preference for dividends and return comovement," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 103-125.
    17. Renneboog, Luc & Szilagyi, Peter G., 2020. "How relevant is dividend policy under low shareholder protection?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    18. Lee, King Fuei, 2010. "Retail minority shareholders and corporate reputation as determinant of dividend policy in Australia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 351-368, September.
    19. Henry, Darren, 2011. "Ownership structure and tax-friendly dividends," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 2747-2760, October.
    20. Jain, Ravi, 2007. "Institutional and individual investor preferences for dividends and share repurchases," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 406-429.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    After-tax CAPM; Stock ownership; Institutional investors; Private corporations; Foundations; Partnerships;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy

    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:eee:empfin:v:28:y:2014:i:c:p:1-12. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    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.