What firm’s characteristics drive the dividend policy? : A mixed-method study on the Euronext stock exchange

Abstract

What drives the dividend policy at the firm level? Literature has been mainly focused on taxes, type of shareholders and market effects. In this paper, we perform a novel approach to dividend policy literature. First, controlling for tax, market and shareholders effects, the paper intends to analyse which firm variables are more relevant on the decision to pay dividends, on the decision to pay regular dividends and on the decision of the amount of dividends. The paper uses non-financial firms listed on Euronext stock exchanges from 2000 to 2017, and we combined a quantitative econometric perspective with a qualitative, using fsQCA. We found that variables such as operating margins, analyst’s coverage and shares in free float have substantial impacts on the dividend policy of firms. Moreover, firm’s size is the major determinant of the dynamics of the dividend policy.