Australian residents are tax-advantaged, relative to American investors, in their access to imputation tax credits on Australian stocks. This paper provides evidence consistent with a difference in dividend valuations between Australian stocks and their American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The ex-dividend drop-off ratio is lower for ADRs relative to their underlying Australian stocks and this difference is most pronounced for stocks that have imputation tax credits and high dividend yields. Consistent with dividend capture trading in the Australian market, the difference in drop-off ratios is driven by both temporarily higher Australian cum-prices and temporarily lower Australian ex-prices. Abnormal trading volume about the ex-day is present in both markets and in the Australian market the abnormal volume is greater for dividends with imputation tax credits. Dividend-related trading leads to price differences across the markets on the ex-dividend day. Price differences are also observed when the stock and the ADR trade with different dividend entitlements due to different ex-dividend dates.

Shareholdings for a sample of institutional equity funds, operating under the Australian imputation tax system, show that dividend policy and fund holdings are related. Relative to market benchmarks and ownership levels across firms, institutional funds are overweight in stocks that pay dividends. Among dividend-paying stocks there is no simple preference for high dividend yields, probably because the highest dividend yields are not sustainable. Instead we find an inverted U relationship between institutional ownership and dividend yield. The tax hypothesis dominates the prudent-man hypothesis in explaining ownership by institutional clienteles. Institutional funds have a higher ownership in stocks which carry full imputation tax credits compared to stocks which have partial, or zero, imputation tax credits.