This study investigates how ultimate controlling shareholders influence dividends payout policy in industrial firms in the natural experimental setting of Hong Kong, which features no tax on dividends and the prevalence of concentrated ownership. We find that the ultimate control held by the controlling shareholders is negatively associated with the level of dividends payout, consistent with the agency costs explanation of dividends; and that the dividend payout behavior in firms with controlling shareholders exhibits similar patterns as in US, UK and EU firms. We also conduct separate analysis on family controlled and state controlled firms and find that the heterogeneity across these large shareholders has a confounding effect on corporate dividend payout behavior.

In this study we examine the incentives for listed family controlled firms in China to establish political connections and their organizational structure as measured by shareholding concentration and composition of board of directors. We hypothesize and find that listed family firms are more likely to establish political connections when the local markets are less developed and the governments are more powerful in allocating economic resources. In particular, firms are more likely to build political connections when local governments suffer from severe budgetary deficits, when they tend to rely on discretionary charges and administrative penalties for raising revenues, and when they have more leeway in granting business subsidies. We also find that controlling shareholders of family firms with political connections tend to concentrate their shareholding and dominate the board of directors so that they can make deals with government officials in secrecy and enjoy the benefits exclusively among themselves.