When do German firms change their dividends?

This paper analyses the decision to change the dividend for a panel of German firms from 1984 to 1994. The period captures an economic boom which followed by a recession. This study comes up with two findings which refine the results by Lintner (1956) and Miller and Modigliani (1961). First, the occurrence of a loss is a key determinant of the dividend decision in addition to the level of net earnings. Second, dividend cuts or omissions tend to be temporary and the majority of German firms revert within two years to their initial dividend level. This stands in marked contrast with the US where firms are more likely to reduce their dividend when earnings deteriorate on a permanent basis. Furthermore, the fact that German firms frequently omit and cut their dividend and quickly return to their initial dividend suggests that dividends in Germany have less of a signalling role than dividends in the US or UK. Our findings also contradict Bhattacharya's (1979) argument that the costs of dividend changes are asymmetric with dividend reductions being more costly to the firm than dividend increases. Finally, we find that firms with banks as major shareholder are more willing toomit the dividend than firms controlled by other types of shareholder.