Abstract:
This paper investigates into the role of dividend in controlling agency conflict between large and small shareholders and between managers and shareholders. Data includes 1,341 samples of listed firms in the Stock Exchange of Thailand during 2002 to 2008. Thailand has high concentration of ownership and there may be two groups of firms. One with agency conflict between large controlling shareholder and other shareholders and one between managers and shareholders.
The empirical findings suggest there are 2 groups of firm. Results provide evidence of rent extraction by controlling shareholder. The second largest and other shareholders are not effective in monitoring the largest. Among firms with no controlling shareholder, the largest shareholder has been effective in monitoring the management. Share concentration by the second largest does not help improve the effectiveness of monitoring. Monitoring is both statistically and economically significant