This paper examines to what extent firms utilize lines of credit to fund cash dividends. We find that higher dividend payouts are related to higher liquidity and that dividend-paying firms who experience cash shortages will utilize credit lines to continue dividend payments. Additionally, we show that credit lines are a permanent component of dividend-paying firms’ capital structure. Our sample statistics indicate that dividend-paying firms are considerably different than non-dividend-paying firms. Dividend payers tend to be more liquid despite having less cash, have smaller credit line balances, have higher market capitalizations, have less long-term debt, are more profitable, and spend less on capital investments. We conclude that access to credit lines is an important component of dividend-paying firms’ capital structure while the level of cash is not.

中文翻译：

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派息：现金还是信贷？

本文研究了企业在多大程度上利用信贷额度为现金股利筹集资金。我们发现，较高的股利支付与较高的流动性相关，并且遇到现金短缺的股利支付公司将利用信贷额度继续进行股利支付。此外，我们证明信贷额度是支付股息的公司资本结构的永久组成部分。我们的样本统计数据表明，支付股息的公司与不支付股息的公司有很大的不同。尽管现金较少，股息支付者往往流动性更高，信贷额度余额较小，市值较高，长期债务较少，利润较高且在资本投资上的支出较少。