Impact of Board Characteristics on the Corporate Dividends Payout: Evidence from Palestinian Stock Market

Abstract

This research aims to examine the impact of board characteristics on dividends payout policy of companies listed on the Palestine Stock Exchange during the period 2013 to 2019 with a total number of 311 firm-year observations. Governance attributes included in this study are gender existence, board size, CEO duality, independence director, and institutional investors. The study uses dividend per share as dependent variable. A robust least square regression model used to evaluate the empirical model in the current study using panel data analysis. Data was gathered from the (PEX) website as well as the annual reports of the companies sampled. The research found that at the 5% level of confidence, there is a positive significant relationship between board size, gender participation, and dividend per share. Furthermore, at the 5% level, there is a significant positive relationship between firm size, profitability, audit firm, and DPS. Firm leverage, on the other hand, has a negative impact on the DPS at the 1% level of confidence. The research’s main contribution in focuses data analysis on the final result of firms operations which is the core concern of investment decisions, it may also assist legislative and official institutions in this field in making their best efforts to establish governance codes in the manner that society wishes.