Determinant Agents Analysis of Dividend Policies Practiced by Companies Listed in Great Britain and France

Dividend policy is one of the most intriguing topics in financial research. Even now, economists provide considerable attention and thought to solving the dividend puzzle, resulting a large number of conflicting hypotheses, theories and explanations. This paper aims to determine the dividend policies for 209 listed on London Stock Exchange and Paris Stock Exchange in 2010 and to explain their dividend payment behavior. So this paper investigates why companies in different countries have established different dividend policies using firm level data from U.K. and France. The models considered the impact of firm profitability, return on assets, firm size, previous year's dividend, free cash-flow, total shareholder return, corporate tax, dividend yield and ownership structure on dividend payout ratios.