Corporate sexual orientation equality and dividend payout
We examine the effect of a firm’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)-friendly policies on its dividend payout and find a significantly positive association. We propose two alternate arguments to explain this association. The disbursement of higher dividends could potentially alleviate the perception of agency costs arising from better treatment of LGBT employees. Alternatively, firms could pay higher dividends (i.e. deplete cash) to increase their bargaining power with labor. Our results support the agency argument. Our findings are robust to alternative models and measures.
Authors
- Hasibul Chowdhury (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3662-7951)
- Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6726-8018)
- Trinh Hue Le (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7974-4376)
- Ashrafee T Hossain (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6029-5248)
Institutions
- Memorial University of Newfoundland (CA)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of South Australia (AU)
- Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (AU)
- Monash University (AU)
Publication Details
- Journal
- European Journal of Finance
- Published
- 2025-02-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/1351847x.2025.2461212
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Corporate Finance and Governance
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.91
Funders
- University of South Australia
- Dalhousie University
- Memorial University of Newfoundland
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada