The relation between financial statement quality and dividend payout: The role of information asymmetry

• Published in: Corporate Management Review Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 77 - 126
• Main Author: 戴怡蕙(Yi-Hui Tai)
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taiwan 國立陽明交通大學管理學院 30.06.2020; National Chiao Tung University, College of Management
• Subjects: Asymmetry; Cash flow; Corporate governance; Dividend policy; Earnings management; Economic growth; Financial reporting; Financial statements; Securities markets; United States > US; Taiwan; 資訊不對稱; information asymmetry; 財務報表品質; real earnings management; 股利; dividend; 實質盈餘管理; Financial statement quality; accruals management; 應計盈餘管理
• ISSN: 1028-7310

Many previous studies in the literature have explored how the quality of financial statements affects a company's financing and investing decisions, but few have discussed the impact of the quality of financial statements on dividend policy. Therefore, this article explores the relation between the quality of financial statements and dividends payout and this paper defines the quality of financial statements by the following three items: (1) the level of accruals management; (2) the level of real earnings management; and (3) accruals quality. We further use ＂control-cash flow right deviation of ultimate controllers＂ and ＂adoption of IFRS＂ to proxy information asymmetry and examine whether information asymmetry will influence the relation between the quality of financial statements and the dividend payout. This study employs TWSE/TPEx listed companies from 2010 to 2015 as research samples. The empirical results show that if the quality of financial statements is defined by the level of accruals management, then the worse the quality of financial statements, the higher the ratio of dividend payout. However, if the quality of financial statements is defined by the level of real earnings management or accruals quality, then there is no relation between the quality of financial statements and the ratio of dividend payout. The study also finds that if the level of information asymmetry of companies is larger, the relation between the quality of financial statement and dividend payouts is more pronounced. In other words, The larger the control-cash flow right deviation of ultimate controllers or before adoption of IFRS, the more pronounced relation between the quality of financial statements and the ratio of dividend payout. The results of this research serve as a supplement to the literature as well as a reference for TWSE/TPEx listed companies with regard to the distribution of dividends.