Government Ownership and Dividend Policy of Russian Companies

This paper aims to explore the impact of state ownership on the dividend policies of companies in Russia. It is based on the dataset of companies, that were traded on the Moscow Exchange from 2011 until 2018, and information regarding 284 companies is employed in this study. Controlling for a range of indicators of size and performance of the firms, as well as for their assets and debts, the research is focussed on the influence of the presence of government among shareholders on the dividend payouts. The paper pays particular attention to the distinction between direct and indirect forms of ownership and evaluates its impact taking into consideration the share of a company that belongs to the state. One of the main findings of the research was the presence of positive impact of indirect government ownership on the probability of dividend payouts of companies, whereas directly owned firms were found to be less likely to distribute dividends than their completely private counterparts. Nonetheless, no particular relation between the amount of paid dividends and the presence of state in the ownership structure was observed.