Robust dividend policy: Equivalence of Epstein-Zin and Maenhout preferences

Abstract

In a continuous-time economy, this study formulates the Epstein-Zin (EZ) preference for the discounted dividend (or cash payouts) of stockholders as an EZ singular control utility. We show that such a problem is well-defined and equivalent to the robust dividend policy set by the firm's executive in the sense of Maenhout's ambiguity-averse preference. While the firm's executive announces the expected future earnings in financial reports, they also signal the firm's confidence in the expected earnings through dividend or cash payouts. The robust dividend policy can then be characterized by a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) variational inequality (VI). By constructing a novel shooting method for the HJB-VI, we theoretically prove that the robust dividend policy is a threshold strategy on the firm's surplus process. Therefore, dividend-caring investors can choose firms that match their preferences by examining stock's dividend policies and financial statements, whereas executives can make use of dividend to signal their confidence, in the form of ambiguity aversion, on realizing the earnings implied by their financial statements.