L’impact de la structure du conseil d’administration et de l’actionnariat sur la politique de dividendes : cas du marché boursier marocain

Résumé

This article tests the impact of corporate governance variables on dividend policy in the Moroccan stock market during the period 2003 to 2018. The tested variables include board of directors’ characteristics (board size, independent members on the board, and female members on the board) and ownership structure (ownership concentration, institutional investors and foreign ownership). Indeed, to our knowledge, this research introduces new variables such as board of directors’ characteristics, which have not been tested before in the Casablanca stock exchange. The literature review presents the two agency hypothesis of dividend payments: the outcome model and the substitute model. The outcome model predicts that dividend payment is the result of good governance, and that well governed firms would pay higher dividends to prove to shareholders that they are acting for the firm’s interest. On the other hand, the substitute model suggests that firms suffering from weak governance problems would pay dividends in order to reduce the available cash flow, and substitute this weakness by limiting the funds internally to avoid agency conflicts. The literature review presents also different previous studies conducted on this subject and the empirical results obtained. To test our panel data, the fixed model effect has been chosen based on the Hausman test and three control variables were used: firm age, growth opportunities and firm size. Moreover, two proxies of dividend distribution have been selected to test the statistical robustness of our results. After conducting eight regressions, three corporate governance variables showed significant results, in addition to one control variable, which is firm size. A positive correlation between board size and dividend policy has been showed and a negative correlation between dividend payments and the two variables of female directors and foreign ownership has been revealed. All these results are in accordance with the substitute model. Therefore, we note that testing new corporate governance variables provides further information about dividend policy in the Moroccan stock market.