경제정책 불확실성이 기업의 배당정책 및 현금보유정책에 미치는 영향

초록

This study investigates the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on corporate dividend policy and cash holdings using 18,820 firm-year observations of firms listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 2016 to 2025. The one-period lagged logarithm of the EPU index is employed as the main explanatory variable, and the models are estimated using firm fixed-effects panel regression models. Additional analyses include market-specific analyses, analyses for the COVID-19 period, financial-constraint analyses based on the SA Index, and robustness tests using the VKOSPI index and Logit/Probit specifications. The results show that higher EPU significantly reduces the likelihood of paying dividends while increasing corporate cash holdings. These findings suggest that firms primarily adjust the decision to pay dividends, rather than the level of dividend payouts, while simultaneously increasing cash holdings in response to heightened economic policy uncertainty, consistent with the precautionary motive for liquidity management. Relatively larger coefficients for cash holdings are observed among KOSDAQ firms and during the COVID-19 period, whereas the negative effect on the likelihood of paying dividends is generally observed across firms with different levels of financial constraints. By jointly examining dividend policy and cash holdings within a unified empirical framework, this study contributes to the literature on corporate financial policy under economic policy uncertainty. The findings are broadly consistent with previous evidence that firms adopt more conservative financial policies in response to heightened uncertainty and provide new empirical evidence on how Korean firms adjust their dividend policy and cash holdings under economic policy uncertainty.

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