We use a novel measure of firm-level political risk based on a textual search technique on firms' quarterly earnings conference transcripts to explain dividend payouts in publicly listed U.S. firms. We find a positive and significant effect of firm-level political risk on dividend payouts, particularly in uncertainties related to economics, institutions, technology, trade, and security. The effect is more pronounced in firms with better corporate governance, less analyst follow-up, and higher growth opportunities. These results support the signaling role of dividends rather than the role of agency theory in explaining dividend payouts when firms are associated with higher levels of political risk. We also find the effect to be prominent after controlling for an aggregate measure of economic policy uncertainty and in poor economic conditions and in major political event periods. We address endogeneity concerns by running placebo tests and conducting instrumental variable analysis and we alleviate self-selection bias by performing propensity score matching technique.

我们基于对公司季度收益会议记录的文本搜索技术，使用一种新颖的公司层面政治风险衡量方法来解释美国上市公司的股息支付。我们发现公司层面的政治风险对股息支付有积极和显着的影响，特别是在与经济、制度、技术、贸易和安全相关的不确定性方面。在公司治理更好、分析师跟进更少、增长机会更高的公司中，这种影响更为明显。当公司与较高水平的政治风险相关时，这些结果支持股息的信号作用，而不是代理理论在解释股息支付方面的作用。我们还发现，在控制了经济政策不确定性的总体衡量指标后，在经济状况不佳和重大政治事件期间，这种影响也很显着。我们通过运行安慰剂测试和进行工具变量分析来解决内生性问题，并通过执行倾向得分匹配技术来减轻自我选择偏差。