Purpose

This study investigates the relative flexibility of payouts vis-à-vis investment in the UK, motivated by concerns regarding this market's distinct payout characteristics and limited relevant research. It addresses the information gap related to the use of conditional mean estimations and examines firm behavior across the investment distribution.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample is an unbalanced panel of 6,173 firm-year observations, from 271 non-financial firms in the FTSE-All Share Index, during 1990–2019. Estimation methods include pooled- ordinary least squares (OLS) and firm fixed-effects regressions as well as unconditional quantile regressions with firm fixed effects.

Findings

For the “average” firm results show a negative relationship between share repurchases and investment, amplified in the presence of financial constraints and growth opportunities. Quantile regressions analysis reveals heterogeneous firm behavior as this relationship becomes stronger in successive quantiles of the investment distribution and disappears at the upper/lower extremes. Results suggest that UK firms exploit the inherent flexibility of share repurchases to facilitate investment. However, this flexibility appears irrelevant to firms with extremely high/low investment, characterized by significant differences in growth opportunities, cash flows and external financing cost. Dividends and investment are independent across the investment distribution, underlining the rigidity of dividends in the UK.

Originality/value

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relative flexibility of payouts vis-à-vis investment in the UK, using firm-level financial data and at points other than the conditional mean. Its value lies in that it shows that share repurchases facilitate rather than impede investment and thus do not corroborate relevant concerns by economists and policymakers. Additionally, by utilizing a relatively new methodology it uncovered heterogeneous firm behavior across the investment distribution suggesting that conditional mean estimations should be applied with caution at least for highly heterogeneous samples.

中文翻译：

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企业支出相对于资本投资的灵活性：英国的一些证据

目的

本研究调查了在英国投资的支出相对灵活性，其动机是对该市场独特的支出特征和有限的相关研究的担忧。它解决了与使用条件均值估计相关的信息差距，并检查了投资分布中的公司行为。

设计/方法/方法

样本是 1990-2019 年间来自 FTSE-All Share Index 中的 271 家非金融公司的 6,173 个公司年度观察值的不平衡面板。估计方法包括合并普通最小二乘法 (OLS) 和固定效应回归以及具有固定效应的无条件分位数回归。

发现

对于“平均”公司业绩显示，股票回购和投资之间存在负相关关系，在存在财务约束和增长机会的情况下被放大。分位数回归分析揭示了异质的公司行为，因为这种关系在投资分布的连续分位数中变得更强，并在上限/下限处消失。结果表明，英国公司利用股票回购的内在灵活性来促进投资。然而，这种灵活性似乎与投资极高/极低的公司无关，其特点是增长机会、现金流和外部融资成本存在显着差异。股息和投资在整个投资分配中是独立的，这凸显了英国股息的刚性。

原创性/价值

据我们所知，这是第一项使用公司层面的财务数据和条件均值以外的点来调查支付相对于英国投资的相对灵活性的研究。它的价值在于它表明股票回购促进而不是阻碍投资，因此不能证实经济学家和政策制定者的相关担忧。此外，通过使用一种相对较新的方法，它揭示了投资分布中的异质公司行为，这表明至少对于高度异质的样本，应谨慎应用条件均值估计。