Do Emerging Market Firms Follow Different Dividend Policies? Empirical Investigation on the Pre and Post Reform Dividend Policy and Behaviour of Dhaka Stock Exchange Listed Firms

Abstract

This study investigates the behaviour of pay-out policy of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) listed firms preceding and following financial crisis to see whether dividend policy appears as significant measure to protect the general shareholders’ interest after the crisis in 1998. OLS models are tested on DSE data preceding (1988-1997) and following financial crisis (1999-2003), on which no other study has been conducted yet. The empirical results fail to trace noticeable improvements in pay-out policy after the market crisis and dividend policy does not appear as a significant measure to protect the shareholders’ interest in the emerging market of Bangladesh.