Do Firms’ Relationships with Principal Customers/Suppliers Affect Shareholders' Income?

52 Pages Posted: 10 Aug 2011 Last revised: 6 Jun 2012

See all articles by Jin Wang

Jin Wang

Wilfrid Laurier University - Lazaridis School of Business & Economics

Date Written: June 5, 2012

Abstract

In this paper, we examine whether a firm’s relationship with its principal customers/suppliers affects its payout policies. A firm has customer-supplier relationships when its business depends on a small number of major customers/suppliers. The extant literature indicates two channels through which customer-supplier relationships might negatively affect a firm’s dividend payments: 1) the high financial distress costs associated with relationship-specific investments and 2) the information certification effect of the principle customer. Consistent with expectations, our study reveals a negative relationship between a firm’s dependence on customer-supplier relationships and its dividend payments. This result is robust to various model specifications and consistent with evidence regarding the time-series properties of dividends. Moreover, we find that high financial distress costs associated with relationship-specific investments are the key channel through which a firm’s customer-supplier relationship affects its dividend payments. Overall, our results suggest that a firm’s relationship with its non-financial stakeholders, such as principal customers/suppliers, is an important determinant of its shareholders’ income.

Keywords: Dividend, Customer, Supplier, Financial distress, Information certification

JEL Classification: G35

Suggested Citation

Wang, Jin, Do Firms’ Relationships with Principal Customers/Suppliers Affect Shareholders' Income? (June 5, 2012). Journal of Corporate Finance, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1630983 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1630983

Jin Wang (Contact Author)

Wilfrid Laurier University - Lazaridis School of Business & Economics ( email )

Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5
Canada

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