Managerial Ownership, Leverage and Dividend Policies: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam’s Listed Firms

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationship among managerial ownership, leverage and dividend policies. The analysis is performed using three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimation on a sample of 81 listed firms on HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE) during the period 2007–2012. The empirical results indicate that managerial ownership has a negative relationship with leverage. This finfing is supported by Agency Theory. Also, the results provide strong support for Pecking Order Theory, which suggests that there is a negative relationship between leverage and dividend. However, contrary to expectations, managerial ownership is found to have positive impact on dividend. It means that companies with higher levels of managerial holdings are consciously choosing higher level of dividends.