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The authors study the dividend policy of 48 firms listed on the Tunisian Stock Exchange during the period 1996-2002. The study tests whether or not managers of Tunisian listed firms smooth their dividends. Moreover, the study outlines the main determinants that may drive the dividend policy of Tunisian quoted firms. To answer the first question, we use Lintner's model in a dynamic setting. The results clearly demonstrate that Tunisian firms rely on both current earnings and past dividends to fix their dividend payment. However, the study shows that dividends tend to be more sensitive to current earnings than prior dividends. To find out the determinants of dividend policy, dynamic panel regressions have been performed. First, profitable firms with more stable earnings can afford larger free cash flows and thus pay larger dividends. Furthermore, they distribute larger dividends whenever they are growing fast. However, neither the ownership concentration nor the financial leverage seems to have any impact on dividend policy in Tunisia. Also, the liquidity of stock market and size negatively impacts the dividend payment. The results are somewhat robust to different specifications. Copyright (c) International Review of Finance Ltd. 2007.

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This paperaddresses the following crucial question: What might influence the decision of a blockholder to enteror exit a firm? Within a concentrated ownership context, such as Canada, we investigate impact of corporategovernance, firms risk, debt, liquidity and size on increase in number ofblockholders. This studycontributes to research topic by shedding light onendogeneity and dynamic nature of ownership structure. In order to take intoaccount discreteness of additional blockholders number, we used four CountData models, namely Poisson, Negative Binomial,Zero-Inflated Poisson, and Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial models. Ourfindings show that while excessive high level of risk, free cash-flow, firmsize, institutional and insiders ownership dissuade shareholders from gettinglarge stakes, moderately high levels of risk and firm leverage encourage themto join Blockholders list.