The moderating effect of stock price on the relationship between earnings quality and dividend payments : a study of Thai Listed Companies

Abstract

This research paper has the objective to investigate and examine the basic relationship on the dividend policy and the earnings quality of companies in Thai stock market, by covering all the industries. The proxies for the earning qualities include a total of four proxies which are earnings persistence, accruals quality, earnings informativeness, and timely loss recognition. Moreover, this research paper also further examines the incentive of dividend policy of companies under Thai stock market by applying the dividend signaling Theory and the information content of dividends hypothesis. The incentive of dividend policy can be viewed as the signal sending by the corporation side. Moreover, this research paper classifies the companies into two major types of companies with stock price loser and company with stock price gainer. Later that, the examination leads to see the difference incentive to pay dividend between these major two types of company based on the dividend signaling theory, the information content of dividends hypothesis, and the catering incentives.