Incentive compensation and the stock price response to dividend increase announcements

Linking executive compensation to stock price performance is predicted to decrease the usual positive price response to dividend increases for two reasons. One, increasing pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) exacerbates managers’ optimistic bias regarding future firm performance, reducing the credibility of dividend signals. Two, increasing pay-performance sensitivity reduces the need for dividends as a means of reducing agency costs. Consistent with behavioral and agency theories of corporate finance, we find that price response does decrease as pay-performance sensitivity increases and that this effect is concentrated in firms with low market-to-book ratios. Additional findings are most consistent with the agency cost explanation.