II. Literature Review
Gupta and Banga (2010) found in their study that there are some determinants, namely leverage,
liquidity, profitability, growth and ownership structure of the firm influence the dividend policy of a firm. The
findings of Baker and Powell’s (2000) research regarding the determinants of dividend policy are rate of present
and prospective earnings, pattern of the dividend payment, and nature of the industry. Alli, Khan and Ramirez
(1993) in their study found strong support in favour of the residual theory of dividends, pecking order argument,
and the role of dividends in mitigating the agency problems, and tax clientele argument. Akhigbe and Madura
(1996) argued that dividend initiations have favourable impact on the performance of share price in the long run
and the opposite in case of the dividend omissions; the immediate share price response and the one-year
cumulative abnormal returns for firms initiating dividends are positively correlated; in case of omitting
dividends, between the immediate share price response and long-term valuation effects have no significant
relation; the post effect of dividend initiations’ firms are significantly higher growth, higher capital investment,
a higher degree of financial leverage, and a higher dollar amount of earnings and vice versa; and the long-term valuation effects of dividend omissions are more unfavourable for larger firms and for relatively large
dividend omissions.