Determinant of dividend policy: Malaysia / Muhamad Aiman Shahrullah Abdul Karim

Malaysia is an emerging market, with capital markets comprises conventional and Islamic make it stand more than others emerging market. The capital market is where various long term financial instrument such as equity are traded. Investors have presumption of the investments they make in the capital market, which can come from capital gain or dividend payment. Unfortunately, dividend decision by firm's management will triggered side effect as it will reduce retained earnings and created problem to fund future project. On the other hand, if firms did not pay dividend, firms share price become unattractive. The goal of this study is to examine the determinant of dividend policy in the context of Malaysia, specifically toward Top 100 largest firms in Bursa Malaysia using more recent data. 55 firms from various industry except financial firms were selected from 20 1 5 until 2020 totaled to 330 observations. This study focuses on three variables which is profitability, leverage, and growth toward dividend pay-out ratio which is proxy of dividend policy. The approach to this study will be a panel data analysis. E-Views which is mathematical instruments are used to applied various statistical techniques namely descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis using POLS, Fixed effect, and Random Effect models. Hausman test revealed the Fixed Effect model is the best model. The results show only profitability significantly and negatively effects dividend policy. Thus, findings from this research would contribute to existing literature to solve the dividend policy mystery