We investigate whether ownership concentration influences payout policy and which effect foreign institutions and government as large shareholders have on payout across firms listed in the Nordic countries. We find that the impact of ownership concentration on payout largely differs among the countries. Higher ownership concentration leads to lower propensity to pay dividends in Finland and to repurchase shares in Norway and Sweden, while higher ownership concentration increases the propensity to dividend payment in Denmark and Norway. We show that ownership concentration has a negative impact on dividend amounts in Sweden and on repurchase amounts in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. We also find that the impact of ownership concentration on propensity to payout and on the payout amount is influenced by foreign institutions and governments as large shareholders. Our findings imply that the impact of ownership concentration on payout is significantly influenced by the context behind ownership concentration.

我们研究所有权集中度是否会影响支付政策，以及是否会影响外国机构和政府（作为大股东）对北欧国家/地区上市公司的支付。我们发现所有权集中度对支出的影响在不同国家之间存在很大差异。较高的所有权集中度会降低在芬兰支付股息以及回购挪威和瑞典股票的倾向，而较高的所有权集中度则会增加在丹麦和挪威的股息支付倾向。我们显示所有权集中度对瑞典的股息金额以及丹麦，芬兰和瑞典的回购金额有负面影响。我们还发现所有权集中度对支付倾向和支付金额的影响受到作为大股东的外国机构和政府的影响。我们的发现表明，所有权集中度对支付的影响受所有权集中度背后的环境的影响很大。