IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finana/v102y2025ics1057521925001656.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political sentiment and corporate payouts

Author

Listed:
  • Hossain, Ashrafee
  • Benkraiem, Ramzi
  • Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar

Abstract

We provide empirical evidence of the impact of firm-level political sentiment on dividend policy. Using a sample composed of over 34,000 firm years, we find that a high level of political sentiment is associated with a lower level of dividend payout. The evidence is robust and survives several tests that address potential endogeneity. Our results suggest that managers consider investors' political sentiment in setting dividend policy. When political sentiment is negative, they pay higher dividends to assuage investors' concerns regarding future prospects. Our results are also consistent with the view that firms pay higher dividends to address the agency cost issue that arises from the free cash flow problem during periods of negative political sentiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Hossain, Ashrafee & Benkraiem, Ramzi & Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar, 2025. "Political sentiment and corporate payouts," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finana:v:102:y:2025:i:c:s1057521925001656
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2025.104078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521925001656
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.irfa.2025.104078?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dividend policy; Political sentiment; Behavioral corporate finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

    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:finana:v:102:y:2025:i:c:s1057521925001656. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/inca/620166 .

    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.