Results in Table III indicate that stockholders of companies that announced both earnings and dividend increases in the same quarter realized, on average, significant positive abnormal returns at the earnings announcement dates (or at AE-1) whether these earnings announcements preceded or followed the corresponding dividend increase announcements. These results, combined with evidence presented in Table II, provide further support of the hypothesis that announcements of quarterly dividend changes provide information beyond that already provided by corresponding quarterly earnings numbers. When dividend increases are announced before or after earnings increases, stockholders realize abnormal returns in the days surrounding both dividend and earnings announcement dates.'8 This indicates that the significant abnormal returns realized at the time of the announcements of dividend changes do not reflect a diffusion or a leakage of the information conveyed by earnings numbers but rather, additional information generated by the dividend announcements. Thus, these findings have important implications for the effectiveness of using quarterly dividend and earnings numbers as devices for signaling management expectations, namely that changes in quarterly dividends provide a signaling device that is at least as effective as quarterly earnings numbers.