Do Corporate Governance and Ownership Determine Dividend Policy in Poland

Abstract

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we explore the determinants of the dividend policy in Poland. Second, we test whether ownership and corporate governance practices determine the dividend policy in the non-financial companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. In order to test the impact of corporate governance we compose, for the first time, quantitative measures on the quality of the corporate governance standards for 110 non-financial companies listed on the WSE. Our results suggest that ownership as well as the increase in corporate governance standards controlling for other determinants bring about a statistically significant increase in the dividend payout ratio. The findings are based on the period 1998-2004.