This paper builds on prior research and argues that religion, as an informal cultural institution, may impose constraints on corporations. The framework of Shariah-compliant firms presents a unique opportunity to investigate this assertion and checks whether firms with Islamic label pay out more or less dividend. Since Islamic Law narrows the investment opportunity sets for Shariah-compliant firms, one would expect Shariah-compliant firms to pay out more dividends to shareholders (investment constraint hypothesis). On the other hand, the prohibition of interest-bearing financing, make of retained earnings an appealing alternative to finance projects, hence resulting in lower dividend payouts (financing constraint hypothesis). Tests on a sample of 13,249 firm-year observations from 17 Islamic countries support the investment constraint hypothesis: Shariah-compliant firms pay out more dividends than non-Shariah compliant ones. Our results are robust to various specifications and after controlling for different variables and addressing potential endogeneity concerns.

本文建立在先前研究的基础上，并认为宗教作为一种非正式的文化机构，可能会对公司施加限制。符合伊斯兰教法的公司框架提供了一个独特的机会来调查这一断言并检查带有伊斯兰标签的公司是否支付了更多或更少的股息。由于伊斯兰法缩小了符合伊斯兰教法的公司的投资机会范围，人们会期望符合伊斯兰教法的公司向股东支付更多的股息（投资约束假设）。另一方面，禁止有息融资，使留存收益成为融资项目的一种有吸引力的替代方案，从而导致股息支付较低（融资约束假设）。对来自 17 个伊斯兰国家的 13,249 个公司年度观察样本进行的测试支持投资约束假设：符合伊斯兰教法的公司比不符合伊斯兰教法的公司支付更多的股息。我们的结果对各种规格和控制不同变量并解决潜在的内生性问题后都是稳健的。