The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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An Examination of the Empirical Relationship between the Dividend and Investment Decisions: A Note
Published: 12/01/1983 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1983.tb03849.x
MICHAEL SMIRLOCK, WILLIAM MARSHALL
This paper empirically examines the separation principle, which asserts that investment decisions are not influenced by dividend decisions. Existing empirical evidence on this proposition is inconclusive. In this paper, we employ causality tests to examine whether investment decisions are, in fact, statistically exogenous with respect to dividend decisions. These tests are undertaken using both firm‐specific and aggregate data. The results indicate no causal relationship from dividends to investment, which provides support for the separation principle as an empirical proposition.
Asset Returns, Discount Rate Changes, and Market Efficiency
Published: 09/01/1985 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1985.tb02368.x
MICHAEL SMIRLOCK, JESS YAWITZ
The primary purpose of this paper is to reconcile the previous findings of discount rate endogeneity with the presence of discount rate announcement effects in securities markets. The crux of this reconciliation is the distinction between “technical” discount rate changes that are endogenous and “nontechnical” changes which contain some informative policy implications. In essence, we attempt to separate expected discount rate changes from unexpected changes, or equivalently, the expected component of discount rate changes from the unexpected component. If markets are efficient, the former should have no announcement effects while the latter may be associated with an announcement effect. Accordingly, the focus of the empirical analysis is on the interaction between discount rate exogeneity, the specific monetary policy regime, and accouncement effects. In addition, we examine whether the behavior of these markets in the postannouncement period is consistent with the rapid price adjustment implied by market efficiency.