IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/uunewp/2002_009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Marginal Source of Finance

Author

Listed:
  • Lindhe, Tobias

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

This paper addresses the ongoingdebate on which view of equity, traditional or new, that best describes firm behavior. According to the traditional view, the marginal source of finance is new equity, whereas under to the new view, marginal financing comes from retained earnings. In the theoretical part, we set up a model where the firm faces a cost of adjusting the dividend level because of an aggravated free cash flow problem. The existence of such a cost - which has been used in arguing the traditional view - does not invalidate the core of the new view, namely that the marginal investment may be financed with retained earnings. The combination of costly changes in dividends and retained earnings as the marginal source of funds actually defines an extended new view of equity. In the empirical part, we test the implication of the new view that dividends and investments are negatively related. The overall conclusion is that the implication of the new view is supported for traded Swedish firms during 1980-98.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindhe, Tobias, 2002. "The Marginal Source of Finance," Working Paper Series 2002:9, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2002_009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nek.uu.se/pdf/wp2002_9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arnold C. Harberger, 1962. "The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 215-215.
    2. James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "The Economic Effects of Dividend Taxation," Working papers 343, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    5. Auerbach, Alan J., 1979. "Share valuation and corporate equity policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 291-305, June.
    6. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    7. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hassett, Kevin A., 2003. "On the marginal source of investment funds," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 205-232, January.
    8. 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.
    9. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    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. Dackehag, Margareta & Hansson, Åsa, 2015. "Taxation of Dividend Income and Economic Growth: The Case of Europe," Working Papers 2015:24, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Dackehag , Margareta & Hansson, Åsa, 2012. "Taxation of Income and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of 25 Rich OECD Countries," Working Papers 2012:6, Lund University, Department of Economics.

    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. Daphne Chen & Shi Qi & Don Schlagenhauf, 2018. "Corporate Income Tax, Legal Form of Organization, and Employment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 270-304, October.
    2. Christian Keuschnigg & Martin Dietz, 2007. "A growth oriented dual income tax," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(2), pages 191-221, April.
    3. Trevor S. Harris & R. Glenn Hubbard & Deen Kemsley, 1999. "The Share Price Effects of Dividend Taxes and Tax Imputation Credits," NBER Working Papers 7445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Roger Gordon & Martin Dietz, 2006. "Dividends and Taxes," NBER Working Papers 12292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    6. 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.
    7. François Gourio & Jianjun Miao, 2010. "Firm Heterogeneity and the Long-Run Effects of Dividend Tax Reform," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 131-168, January.
    8. William M. Gentry & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Fundamental Tax Reform and Corporate Financial Policy," NBER Working Papers 6433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, 1990. "Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on Corporate Financial Policy and Organizational Form," NBER Working Papers 3222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Becker, Bo & Jacob, Marcus & Jacob, Martin, 2013. "Payout taxes and the allocation of investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 1-24.
    13. Zeida, Teegawende H., 2019. "On the corporate tax reform: Coordination and trade-offs," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Auerbach, Alan J., 2002. "Taxation and corporate financial policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 19, pages 1251-1292, Elsevier.
    15. Lee, Sang-Yeob & Hong, Woo-Hyung, 2020. "Does tax really matter for corporate payout policy: Evidence from a policy experiment in South Korea," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez, 2007. "An Agency Theory of Dividend Taxation," NBER Working Papers 13538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Michael Stimmelmayr & Doina Radulescu, 2006. "Does Incorporation Matter? Quantifying the Welfare Loss of Non-uniform Taxation Across," EcoMod2006 272100088, EcoMod.
    18. Harris, Trevor S. & Hubbard, R. Glenn & Kemsley, Deen, 2001. "The share price effects of dividend taxes and tax imputation credits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 569-596, March.
    19. Jacob, Martin, 2010. "Taxation, Dividends, and Share Repurchases: Taking Evidence Global," Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies 2010:10, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    20. Julie H. Collins & John R. M. Hand & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2000. "Valuing Deferral: The Effect of Permanently Reinvested Foreign Earnings on Stock Prices," NBER Chapters, in: International Taxation and Multinational Activity, pages 143-172, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    The traditional view of equity; the new view of equity; financing policy; payout policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:uunewp:2002_009. 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: Ulrika Öjdeby (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nekuuse.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.