Bank Capital Regulation and Dividend Policy

We examine whether bank capital requirements are relevant to bank dividend payout policies. On the basis of an unbalanced panel analysis of 9,127 observations in 83 countries over the period of 1999 to 2012, we find that higher capital requirement regulation stringency is negatively associated with bank dividend payouts. In addition, we also find that capital regulatory pressure clearly explains dividend payouts during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. However, capital regulatory pressure is effective only in limiting dividend payouts by undercapitalized banks in developing countries.