Determinants of Dividend Payout Ratios: Evidence from United States

The paper seeks to extend Amidu and Abor (1) and Anil and Kapoor (2) findings regarding the determinants of dividend payout ratios by examining the same for the American service and manufacturing firms. We find that for the entire sample the dividend payout ratio is the function of profit margin, sales growth, debt-to-equity ratio, and tax. For firms in the Services industry the dividend payout ratio is the function of profit margin, sales growth, and debt-to-equity ratio. For manufacturing firms we find that dividend payout ratio is the function of profit margin, tax, and market-to-book ratio. We also found that the results are different when the dividend payout ratio is defined as the ratio between the cash dividend that the after-tax cash flow, not the after tax earnings of the companies.