State or Private ownership - The impact on performance and dividend payout
Abstract
This paper explores the impact state and private ownership have on return on
assets and dividend payouts on a large sample of private and public limited
liability companies in Norway. We test the impact using random-effects models
on data for the time period 2002-2015. Our results are consistent with theory,
which suggests that state ownership offers lower profitability and dividend
payouts. We find that state-owned enterprises offer an average return on assets of
4.3192% while private-owned enterprises offer an average return on assets of
8.4738%. State-owned enterprises yield an average dividend payout ratio of
10.8798% while privately owned enterprises yield 24.4069%. By controlling for
other factors, we find that state ownership negatively impacts return on assets and
dividend payouts.
Description
Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Business, Finance - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2018