Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how financial literacy and demographic variables (gender, age, income level, education, occupation, marital status and investment experience) related to behavioral biases. Design/methodology/approach The study uses one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), factor analysis and multiple regression analysis to examine survey data from more than 500 individual investors in India. Findings The results reveal the presence of different behavioral biases including overconfidence and self-attribution, the disposition effect, anchoring bias, representativeness, mental accounting, emotional biases and herding among Indian investors. Hence, the findings support the view that individual investors do not always act rationally. The results also show that financial literacy has a negative association with the disposition effect and herding bias, a positive relation with mental accounting bias, but no significant relation with overconfidence and emotional biases. Age, occupation and investment experience are the most important demographic variables that relate to the behavioral biases of individual investors in the sample. Regarding gender, males are more overconfident than are females about their knowledge of the stock market. Research limitations/implications The study does not test for causality, only association between the variables. Thus, the findings in this study should not be interpreted as suggesting causality. The study may have implications for financial educators in promoting the financial awareness programs for individuals. Financial advisors can potentially become more effective by understanding their clients’ decision-making processes. Originality/value Despite an extensive literature on behavioral finance, limited academic research attempts to unravel the relation of how financial literacy and demographic variates relate to behavioral biases. This study contributes to this literature by trying to fill this gap.

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This study reports the results of a 1999 survey of Nasdaq-listed firms. Respondents provided information about the importance of 22 different factors that influence their dividend policy. Our results suggest that many managers of Nasdaq firms make dividend decisions consistent with Lintner's (1956) survey results and model. The results also show significant differences between the manager responses of financial and non-financial firms on nine of the 22 factors. This finding implies the presence of industry effects on dividend policy decisions. In general, the same factors that are important to Nasdaq firms are also important to NYSE firms.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to survey managers of firms listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) to learn their views about the factors influencing dividend policy, dividend issues, and explanations for paying dividends. It compares the results to similar dividend surveys in the USA, Canada, Indonesia, and India. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a mail survey of CSE listed firms that paid one or more cash dividends to common stock holders between June 1, 2010 and September 30, 2014 as the primary means of collecting data. Findings – The evidence shows that the most important determinants of a firm’s dividend policy are the level of current earnings, stability of earnings, and needs of current shareholders. A significant correlation exists between the overall rankings of the 25 factors influencing dividend policy between managers of Moroccan firms and those of USA, Canadian, Indonesian, and Indian firms. Managers of Moroccan firms perceive that dividend policy affects firm value. Managers view multiple theories including signaling, agency, catering, and life cycle explanations as credible and contribute in explaining why their firms pay dividends. Research limitations/implications – Despite a high response rate of almost 55 percent, the number of responses limits the ability to divide the sample firms by size, industry, and other characteristics and to test for statistically significant differences between various groups. Originality/value – This is the first survey-based research designed to document how Moroccan managers view dividends. Although evidence suggests that some factors are consistently more important than others, no universal set of factors is likely to be applicable to all firms.

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