The Moderating Effect of Equity Financing and Ownership Type on the Relationship between Dividend Policy and Financial Reporting Quality

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of equity financing and ownership type on the relationship between dividend policy and financial reporting quality of listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The statistical sample consists of 124 companies during 2011-2018. The dependent variable of this study is financial reporting quality. Some proxies are used for measuring this variable, such as accruals quality, earnings forecasting power and conservatism. In this study, Dechow and Dichev model (2002) is used to calculate the quality of accruals and conservatism is measured based on Givoly and Hayn model (2000).

The results of statistical analysis show that there is a positive and significant relationship between dividend policy and financial reporting quality (accruals quality and earnings forecasting power). Moreover, the findings indicate that the type of firm ownership (government or private ownership) moderates this relationship. In addition, equity financing moderates the relationship between conservatism and dividend.

Companies which pay more dividends, have more accruals quality. In addition, by increasing the amount of dividends paid, earnings forecasting power increases. According to findings, the relationship between dividend and reporting quality in the firms whose government ownership is weaker than other firms and in these firms, dividend does not have informative content about high reporting quality. Additionally, equity financing only weakens the relation between conservatism and dividend and does not affect the relationship dividend and two other measures of reporting quality