Statistical Analysis with Missing Data

Testing Trade-Off and Pecking Order Predictions about Dividends and Debt

In the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, and Japan, the propensity to pay dividends is higher among larger, more profitable firms, and those for which retained earnings comprise a large fraction of total equity. Although there are hints of reductions in the propensity to pay dividends in most of the sample countries over the 1994 to 2002 period, they are driven by a failure of newly listed firms to initiate dividends when expected to do so. Dividend abandonment and the failure to initiate by existing nonpayers are economically unimportant except in Japan. Moreover, in each country, aggregate dividends have not declined and are concentrated among the largest, most profitable firms. Finally, outside of the U.S. there is little evidence of a systematic positive relation between relative prices of dividend paying and non-paying firms and the propensity to pay dividends. Overall, these findings cast doubt on signaling, clientele, and catering explanations for dividends, but support agency cost-based lifecycle theories.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID991026_code415748.pdf?abstractid=887643&rulid=9365897&mirid=3

Why Do Firms Pay Dividends? International Evidence on the Determinants of Dividend Policy

Unemployment: macroeconomic performance and the labour market

The article analyses the rise in household indebtedness from the point of view of its causes and long-run macroeconomic implications. The analysis is focussed on the US case. Differently from life-cycle interpretations of the phenomenon, and from interpretations in terms of erratic deviations of current income flows from their long-run trend, the rising household debt is viewed as the outcome of persistent changes in income distribution and growing income inequalities. Through household debt, low wages appear to have been brought to coexist with relatively high levels of aggregate demand, thus providing the solution to the contradiction between the necessity of high and rising consumption levels, for the growth of the system's actual output, and a framework of antagonistic conditions of distribution which keeps within limits the real income of the vast majority of society. The question of the long-run sustainability of this substitution of loans for wages is finally discussed. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

/pdf/rising-household-debt-its-causes-and-macroeconomic-1ozw4p35vz.pdf

Rising household debt: Its causes and macroeconomic implications—a long-period analysis

This paper shows how a Merton-model approach can be used to develop measures of the probability of failure of individual quoted UK companies. Probability estimates are then constructed for a group of failed companies and their properties as leading indicators of failure assessed. Probability estimates of failure for a control group of surviving companies are also constructed. These are used in probit regressions to evaluate the information content of the Merton-based estimates relative to information available in company accounts and in assessing Type I and Type II errors. We also look at power curves and accuracy ratios. The paper shows that there is much useful information in the Merton-style estimates.

/pdf/a-merton-model-approach-to-assessing-the-default-risk-of-uk-1f8t99lirm.pdf

A Merton-Model Approach to Assessing the Default Risk of UK Public Companies

This paper uncovers an increasing proportion of quoted UK companies omitting cash dividends. Using a large panel of quoted UK firms, we estimate panel data probit models for the incidence of dividend omissions and cuts as functions of financial characteristics including cash flow, leverage, investment opportunities, investment and company size. These variables account for most of the increase in omission since 1995. There is relatively little evidence to link this to the major tax reform of 1997 that abolished tax refunds on dividend income payable to tax‐exempt institutions. Significant persistence effects indicate companies are slow to adjust their balance sheets through their dividend.

/pdf/hard-times-or-great-expectations-dividend-omissions-and-5dasi7r9mz.pdf

Hard Times or Great Expectations? Dividend Omissions and Dividend Cuts by UK Firms

This article uses the 1995 and 2000 waves of the British Household Panel Survey to examine how a self-reported indicator of financial pressure is related to household finances and other characteristics. Using an ordered-logit model we find that the burden of debt is affected by the unsecured debt-income ratio, mortgage income gearing, financial wealth, health, ethnicity and marital status.

The impact of unsecured debt on financial pressure among British households

Using data for 24 OECD economies from 1961 to 1997 we investigate whether the empirical relationship between business cycle volatility and long-run growth is positive, as Blackburn (Economic Journal, Vol. 109, No. 1 (1999), pp. 67–77) suggests, or negative, the view of the UK and other governments. The existing empirical literature is ambiguous on this issue. Here we account for the disparate results and find a significant negative relationship. This relationship is found to depend crucially on the time dimension of the data. We also find that oil price volatility and inflation uncertainty, as indicators of world and general shocks, are robustly correlated with growth.

Business Cycle Volatility, Uncertainty and Long-run Growth

Household indebtedness has risen sharply in recent years, with large increases in both secured and unsecured borrowing. In this paper, waves 5 and 10 of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) for 1995 and 2000 are used to examine the determinants of participation in the unsecured debt market and the amount borrowed. Probit models for participation are estimated and age, income, positive financial prospects and housing tenure are found to be very significant and have the expected sign according to a life-cycle model for consumption. Regressions to explain the level of borrowing by individuals suggest that income is the main variable explaining cross-sectional differences in unsecured debts. The increase in aggregate unsecured debt between 1995 and 2000 does not seem to be closely linked to changes in the determinants of debt market participation and has been mainly associated with the larger amounts borrowed by those with debts. Increases in income, better educational qualifications and improved prospects regarding the financial situation contributed to this result. The major part of the overall increase in unsecured debt is not explained by variables at the individual level, but is accounted for by common, unmodelled macroeconomic factors.

/pdf/the-determinants-of-unsecured-borrowing-evidence-from-the-3h9mi2mlsi.pdf

Garry Young

Papers

A Merton-Model Approach to Assessing the Default Risk of UK Public Companies

Hard Times or Great Expectations? Dividend Omissions and Dividend Cuts by UK Firms

The impact of unsecured debt on financial pressure among British households

Business Cycle Volatility, Uncertainty and Long-run Growth

The Determinants of Unsecured Borrowing: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey