This study examines whether economic policy uncertainty (EPU) is associated with corporate dividend policy. Using a sample of private firms, we find that EPU is negatively related to dividend payouts. Our main findings are robust to endogeneity concerns, omitted variable problems, simultaneity bias, and alternative measures of EPU. Further, we find that firms are less likely to pay dividends when EPU is higher, confirming our main results. We also find that the negative relation between EPU and dividend payouts is stronger for firms with higher leverage, operating cash flows, sales growth, return on assets, and cash flow volatility than their counterparts. In contrast, the negative relation is weaker for firms with higher retained earnings-to-total equity ratios. Our study highlights that issues such as EPU can influence the dividend payout policies of private firms.

中文翻译：

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经济政策不确定性和股息政策：来自私营企业的见解


本研究考察了经济政策不确定性 （EPU） 是否与公司股息政策相关。使用私营公司的样本，我们发现 EPU 与股息支付呈负相关。我们的主要发现对内生性问题、遗漏的变量问题、同时性偏倚和 EPU 的替代测量是稳健的。此外，我们发现，当 EPU 较高时，公司支付股息的可能性较小，这证实了我们的主要结果。我们还发现，对于杠杆率、经营现金流、销售增长、资产回报率和现金流波动性较高的公司，EPU 和股息支付之间的负相关关系比同行更强。相比之下，留存收益与总权益比率较高的公司，负相关较弱。我们的研究强调，EPU 等问题会影响私营公司的股息支付政策。