1、 中文 2612 字， 1590 单词， 9300 英文字符 外文翻译 Ownership Structure and Dividend Policy: Evidence from Malaysian Companies Material Source: International Review of Business Research Papers Vol.6 Author: Nathasa Mazna 1.0 Introduction Recent studies such as Claessens et al. (2000), Faccio et al. (2001) and La Po
2、rta et al. (1999) observe that many public listed companies located outside the US and UK have high concentration of ownership, with a single large shareholder or shareholder group predominantly controlling companies. The evidence of large shareholders in developed countries beside US and UK, Europe
3、an countries and East Asian countries are against the concept of the separation of ownership from control viewed by Berle and Means (1932). The effective control of the large shareholders enables them to influence the decisions regarding how companies are run and also decisions on corporate policies
4、. However, as stated by Holderness (2003), the role of large shareholders is not well developed in the ownership literature, especially the role of the largest shareholder. The largest shareholder is a unique group of shareholder,as their holding can be associated with benefits and costs, especially
5、 the underinvestment costs (Claessens et al. 2002； Truong and Heaney 2007). Dividend policy is one of companies decisions that are found to be influence by corporate ownership structure. Dividends can be used to mitigate agency problems in a company (Easterbrook 1984； Jensen 1986； Rozeff 1982), thus
6、 substitute large ownership as monitoring tools. On the other hand, large shareholders could use their power to expropriate corporate resources for their own private consumption. This could limit the dividend payments of companies that are associated with severe agency conflicts (Faccio et al. 2001)
7、. In view of this argument, it is essential to examine the association between large shareholders, especially the largest shareholder and dividend policy to gain better understanding on corporate dividend decisions. The main focus of this study is to investigate the effect of the largest shareholder
8、 on the corporate dividend policy by examining Malaysian listed companies from 2002 to 2006. Malaysia provides an interesting background to examine this issue as the ownership structure is concentrated and large shareholders are in control. On average, the study finds that the largest shareholder or
9、 a shareholder group owns around 40 percent of the company paid-up capital. In addition, the study also interested in analysing the effect of the second largest shareholder on corporate dividend decisions, as it is observe that more than 75 percent of the observations have a significant second large
10、st shareholding. Prior research on the relationship between ownership structure and dividend policy has largely focused on companies in the US and the UK, where the markets are well regulated and ownership is widely distributed. Only few single country-based studies have examined the relationship be
11、tween the largest shareholder and dividend policy, and the existing evidence mainly focuses on European companies (e.g. Goergen et al. 2005； Mancinelli and Ozkan 2006； Maury and Pajuste 2002). 2.0 Literature Review and Hypothesis Development Agency theory suggests that large shareholders ownership m
12、ay either alleviate or exacerbate agency conflicts. A high level of managerial ownership could minimize agency problems, as managers have to bear a portion of the losses arising from their divergent behaviour (Jensen and Meckling 1976； Morck et al. 1988). Large shareholders have a strong incentive t
13、o maximize the companys wealth, have control over the company to have their interest respected (Shleifer and Vishny 1997) and have the advantages in collecting information and monitoring the company (Shleifer and Vishny 1986). Nonetheless, the interest of large shareholders might not match the inter
14、est of minority shareholders, thus leading to possible expropriation by large shareholders (Shleifer & Vishny, 1997). Agency theory also suggests that dividends can be used as a corporate governance (CG) mechanism to mitigate agency concerns. Rozeff (1982) develops an optimal dividend payout/cost mi
15、nimization model and postulates that dividend payments are part of a monitoring device. Dividends can also minimize agency conflicts by subjecting companies to the scrutiny of capital market monitoring (Easterbrook 1984). Based on the free cash flow hypothesis, Jensen (1986) suggests that high payme
16、nt of dividends could limit the cash available for managers. Therefore, managers investment in uneconomic projects or wastage on perquisites can be minimized. The association between the managerial ownership and dividend policy has been extensively examine in empirical studies (e.g.Agrawal and Jayar
17、aman 1994； Mohd et al. 1995； Rozeff 1982). Evidences show that companies pay lower dividends when the managerial shareholding in companies is relatively high. Dividends also play a significant role in controlling possible agency conflicts between large shareholders and minority shareholders. By payi
18、ng dividends, a pro-rata distribution can be guaranteed to all shareholders and limit corporate wealth from large shareholders control Dividends can also be utilised by controlling shareholders to off-set the minority shareholders concern in an environment where expropriation by controlling sharehol
19、ders prevails (Faccio et al. 2001). However, in the presence of large shareholders, lower dividend payments can be observed as dividends are not needed to function as an alternative agency control device (Goergen et al. 2005). Dividends are viewed as a substitute mechanism to large shareholder owner
20、ship in mitigating agency conflicts. Several studies have examined the relationship between the largest shareholder and dividend policy. A negative relationship between the largest shareholder and dividends are observed by Gugler and Yurtoglu (2003), Maury and Pajuste (2002), Mancinelli and Ozkan (2
21、006), Renneboog and Szilagyi (2006) and Renneboog and Trojanowski (2007) for companies from Germany, Finland, Italy, Netherland and UK, respectively. While a positive association between the largest shareholder and dividend payouts is observed by Truong and Heaney (2007) based on the sample drawn fr
22、om 37 countries. Recent studies has analyse the effect of other large shareholders, beside the largest shareholder on companies based from agency perspectives. Other large shareholders could monitor the controlling shareholder (Bolton and von Thadden 1998； Pagano and Roell 1998). The monitoring role
23、 play by the other large shareholders thus, could limit the expropriation of minority shareholders resources. However, other large shareholders may collude with the controlling shareholder in expropriating corporate resources and share the private benefits (Faccio et al. 2001； Pagano and Roell 1998)
24、. Empirical evidence on the impact of other large shareholders on dividend policy has been limited. Faccio et al. (2001) find that the presence of multiple large shareholders in Europe minimizes the expropriation activity of the controlling shareholder, thus resulting in higher dividend payments, wh
25、ile in Asia, lower dividend rates are being observed. They conclude that the controlling shareholder collaborate with other large shareholders to expropriate the minority shareholders in Asia. Several single country studies that analyse the effect of other large shareholders, particularly the second largest shareholder on dividend policy yield mixed results. For Finland, Maury and Pajuste (2002) show that dividend payouts are negatively related to the second largest shareholder. In contrast,
