Title: Dividend Policy and the Sensitivity of Firm Value to Dividend Announcements and Investment
Abstract: We investigate how investors react differently to dividend announcement depending on the level of dividend management, and find that the stock market reacts more favorably to dividend announcements by dividend managing firms than to those of non-dividend managing firms. In addition, it takes announcements of dividend reductions by non-dividend managing firms as good news, supporting our hypothesis that decreasing dividends by non-dividend managing firms are a signal of good investment opportunities, while this is not the case for dividend managing firms. We also confirm that the dividend announcement returns of non-dividend managing firms are significantly and positively related to their annual investment levels, while it is not the case for dividend managing firms.