Abstract EN:

This thesis studies how ownership structure and corporate governance mechanisms affect the dividend policy. The empirical study conducted with a sample of listed French companies show évidence in support of many hypothèses drawing on the agency cost explanation of payout policy. Cash dividends are useful to mitigate the Free Cash Flow risk. Moreover, it appears that dividend policy is a complex décision which is strongly associated with the characteristics of ownership and some governance variables. Our results reveal that firms make lower dividend payments as the ownership concentration increase. Controlled firms are prone to engage in expropriation of minority shareholders. However, our findings highlight the importance of the rôle played by the controlling shareholder in determining dividend level. We argue that the relation between his ownership and dividend reflects not only the "rent extraction" effect but also the constraints which are imposed on the controlling shareholder