Author(s): Ioannis Chasiotis, Dimitrios Konstantios, Vassilios-Christos Naoum
This article investigates the corporate payout decisions of globally listed shipping companies. We collect firm-level data from the Compustat Global database and draw a sample containing 1,510 firm year observations of 138 shipping companies from 2006 to 2019. We use pooled and fixed effects OLS regressions to explore the factors that influence dividend payout ratios. Additionally, we investigate the decision to pay dividends using a binary response model. We find that well-known dividend determinants explain both the propensity to pay dividends as well as the across and within firm variation of payout ratios in the maritime sector. Specifically, our findings show that profitability, growth opportunities, firm age and firm efficiency have a positive impact on dividend ratios and the propensity to pay dividends. On the contrary, the respective effect of cash flow volatility, leverage, firm size and market competition is negative. The weight of our evidence provides support for asymmetric information and agency cost theories and highlight the effect of market imperfections in shaping payout decisions in the maritime sector.