Effect of Institutional and Insider Ownership on Dividend Policy: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

This research study aimed to examine the effect of institutional and insider ownership on dividend policy of a firm. Ownership structure play a vital role in explaining firm dividend policy. To investigate the effect of institutional and insider ownership on dividend policy, a random sample of 50 non-financial firms was selected for the period of 2009 to 2013. The study based on panel data so for the selection of appropriate panel data model among pooled OLS, Random effect and Fixed effect, Breusch Pagan LM test, Chow test, and Hausman test were used and random effect model was found best fitted. Results indicated that institutional ownership has positive relationship while insider ownership has negative relationship with dividend payout. Further, inclusion of institutional ownership along with insider ownership has increased the explanatory power of the model by 5.56% which is the incremental effect of the institutional ownership. Moreover, free cash flows and leverage have negative while firm size and market to book value have positive relationship with dividend payout.