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Purpose:\ud This paper aims to investigate the impact of ownership structure on dividend policy of listed firms in Turkey. Particularly, it attempts to uncover the effects of family involvement (through ownership and board representation), non-family blockholders (foreign investors, domestic financial institutions and the state) and minority shareholders on dividend decisions in the post-2003 period as it witnesses the major economic and structural reforms.\ud \ud Design/methodology/approach:\ud The paper uses alternative dividend policy measures (the probability of paying dividends, dividend payout ratio and dividend yield) and uses appropriate regression techniques (logit and tobit models) to test the research hypotheses, by focusing on a recent large panel dataset of 264 Istanbul Stock Exchange-listed firms (non-financial and non-utility) over a 10-year period 2003-2012.\ud \ud Findings:\ud The empirical results show that foreign and state ownership are associated with a less likelihood of paying dividends, while other ownership variables (family involvement, domestic financial institutions and minority shareholders) are insignificant in affecting the probability of paying dividends. However, all the ownership variables have a significantly negative impact on dividend payout ratio and dividend yield. Hence, the paper presents consistent evidence that increasing ownership of foreign investors and the state in general reduces the need for paying dividends in the Turkish market.\ud \ud Research limitations/implications:\ud Because of the absence of empirical research on how ownership structure may affect dividend policy and the data unavailability for earlier periods in Turkey, the paper cannot make comparison between the pre-and post-2003 periods. Nevertheless, this paper can be a valuable benchmark for further research.\ud \ud Practical implications:\ud The paper reveals that cash dividends are not used as a monitoring mechanism by investors in Turkey and the expropriation argument through dividends for Turkish families is relatively weak. Accordingly, the findings of this paper may benefit policymakers, investors and fellow researchers, who seek useful guidance from relevant literature.\ud \ud Originality/value:\ud To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the link between ownership structure and dividend policy in Turkey after the implementation of major reforms in 2003

This study explores the simultaneous relationship between corporate cash holdings and dividend policy using a large sample of around 400 non-financial firms for the period from 1991 to 2008. The results show that cash holdings are affected by dividends, leverage, growth, size, risk, profitability, and working capital ratio. Dividend policy is affected by cash, leverage, growth, size, risk, and profit. When controlling for simultaneity, dividend payments do not appear to significantly affect cash holdings, nor do cash holdings affect dividend policy. The empirical analysis suggests that simultaneity is crucial in analyzing corporate cash holdings and dividend policy. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper explores the impact of internal and external corporate governance practices on the decision to hold cash in MENA countries. Using 430 non-financial firms in the MENA region for the period from 2000 to 2009, we find that both types of governance practices are important. We report a negative relationship between board size and cash holdings, evidence that firms hold less cash to reduce agency conflicts. Also, we detect that external governance activities are important in cash holding decisions, since we report that firms belonging to countries with international standards of securities law and bank supervision hold less cash. For our sub-sample of 85 firms, we report evidence that institutional owners are seen to be self-opportunistic and that they aim to maximize their own private benefits.

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