Corporate Financial Policy, Information, and Market Expectations: An Empirical Investigation of Dividends.

This paper documents a relationship between announcements of unexpected changes in financial policy and unexpec ted changes in performance of the firm. Using a new methodology that combines analysis of stock price movements and earnings forecast data the authors provide evidence that analysts revise their earnings fo recasts rationally following the announcement of an unexpected divide nd change by an amount positively related to the size of both the une xpected dividend change and the change in equity value surrounding th e announcement. The results provide direct evidence consistent with t he hypothesis that unexpected dividend changes signal information abo ut firm performance to market participants. Copyright 1987 by American Finance Association.