Abstract

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis theorizes that the structure of a language may affect the way that its speakers think. We investigate if there is a significant difference in dividend policy of firms headquartered in a country whose primary language uses a strong future-time reference (FTR) compared with a country that uses a weak FTR language. We posit that use of future tense to describe future events increases the mental distance from the future, and as a result, reduces a person's concern about the future. As today’s dividend policy is determined based on both today’s and future expected performance of the firm, we hypothesize that firms in strong FTR language speaking countries follow a dividend policy to pay out more today than firms in weak FTR language speaking countries. Our empirical results confirm this hypothesis as we find higher dividend payouts by firms in strong FTR countries than in weak FTR countries. We further investigate if firms in strong FTR countries make changes in dividend policy more frequently than firms in weak FTR countries.

摘要

Sapir-Whorf 假说认为，语言的结构可能会影响说话者的思维方式。我们调查了总部位于主要语言使用强未来时间参考 (FTR) 的国家的公司与使用弱 FTR 语言的国家的公司的股息政策是否存在显着差异。我们假设使用将来时来描述未来事件会增加与未来的心理距离，从而减少一个人对未来的担忧。由于今天的股息政策是根据公司今天和未来的预期业绩确定的，我们假设 FTR 语言强的国家的公司今天遵循的股息政策比 FTR 语言弱的国家的公司支付更多。我们的实证结果证实了这一假设，因为我们发现强 FTR 国家的公司比弱 FTR 国家的公司支付更高的股息。我们进一步调查 FTR 强国的公司是否比 FTR 弱国的公司更频繁地改变股息政策。