Dynamic Determinants of Dividend in Affiliated and Unaffiliated Firms to Government in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE)

Abstract

Dividend Policy is one of the most important financial decisions that managers encounter. This study contributes to the literature of dividend and empirical research investigating the effects of dynamic factors in Tehran Stock Exchange. Based on some criteria, the study contains 133 listed firms over a 10-year period from 2001 to 2010. To test the research hypotheses, this study uses Fixed Effect model as a static and Generalized Method of Moments as a dynamic regression model. The results indicate that the most important determinants of dividends are market risks with a negative association, followed by market to book value, and firm size with positive associations. The variable of the government ownership has a negative coefficient, and it is statistically insignificant. It means that affiliated firms to the governments generally tend to pay fewer dividends, which is not significant. Therefore, the determinants of dividend decisions are not significantly different between the two groups of firms.