Module 22.1 LOS 22.d: Clientele and Agency effects, tax considerations for dividend policies

The clientele effect is a dividend policy theory that states to different groups of invests have different desired level of dividends. Take tax considerations for example. High tax bracket investors prefer lower dividend payoffs while lower bracket investors want higher dividends.

Through this consideration, we can state that in given tax rates and dividends TD and tax rate on capital gains TCG, investors would be indifferent between receiving: $D in dividends or $D (1 − TD) / (1 − TCG) in capital gains.

Because of this, we can calculate the change in price for when a stock goes ex-dividend as:

Agency Costs can exist between shareholders and managers, and shareholders and bondholders. Managers may want to invest, but shareholders may consider the projects chosen as overinvestment. Similarly, when shareholders pay themselves large dividends, that reduces the safety net for bondholders.

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