| dc.description.abstract | Explaining dividend policy has been one of the most difficult challenges facing financial
economists. Despite decades of study, we have yet to completely understand the factors that
influence dividend policy and the manner in which these factors interact. The dividends and
dividend policy were the subject of many studies for many years from past to present (Zhou and
Ruland. 2006): This study sought to find out the determinants of dividend policy.
This was a descriptive survey on a population of all the firms listed on the Nairobi Stock
Exchange from whom companies that had traded consistently from 2004 to 2008 were sampled.
The study used secondary data to collect data on the on total assets, current assets, current
liabilities, common equity, retained earnings, net income, and market capitalization from the
companies' books of account on data available at NSE. The data was analyzed using a regression
on the dividend payout ratio as a dependent variable against the independent variables which
were: profitability, firm size, growth opportunity, earned equity mix and liquidity.
The study concludes that profitability, liquidity, size, earned to contributed equity mix positively
influence dividend policies while growth opportunity was also found to positively influence
dividend policy contrary to past studies and expectations. | en |
