【正文】 investor behavior. Today, corporate managers are left with a vast and often conflicting body of research about dividends. One way to enhance our understanding of why corporations pay dividends is to examine the views of managers who are responsible for making such decisions. Past fieldwork and surveys have provided important insights into how managers determine their firm39。s dividend payouts and their views about various dividend policy issues. For example, Lintner (1956) conducted the seminal field study about the determination of dividend policy. Other researchers including Baker, Farrelly, and Edelman (1985) and Baker and Powell (1999) surveyed managers to obtain their views about dividend policy. Such studies plement other types of empirical research on dividend policy. Our study examines how managers view dividend policy but uses a different data set to extend and refine the scope of previous survey research. Specifically, we survey corporate managers of NASDAQ firms that consistently pay cash dividends to determine their views about Dividend policy , the relationship between dividend policy and value, and four mon explanations for paying dividends—signaling, taxpreference, agency costs, and birdinthehand arguments. Our motivation for conducting this study is to determine whether the evidence simply reaffirms what we already know or provides new insights about dividend policy. The study is timely given evidence by Fama and French (2020) of the declining incidence of dividend payers, which not only reflects the changing characteristics of dividend payers but also their lower propensity to pay dividends. In this study, we do not focus on the views about dividend policy of managers from the typical NASDAQ firm because most NASDAQ firms either pay no dividends or pay dividends on an irregular basis. Instead, we investigate the views of a subset of NASDAQ firms, namely, those that Consistently pay cash dividends. The fact that most NASDAQ firms do not pay dividends is not surprising given their characteristics. As Damodaran (1999) notes, a firm39。 dividend policies. We also review some of the subsequent research related to Lintner39。s model of dividends remains the best description of the dividend setting process available. Dividend Policy and Value Much empirical research exists investigating whether dividend policy affects firm value. Graham and Dodd (1951) and Gordon (1959) argue that an increase in the dividend payout increases stock price (value) and lowers the cost of equity, but empirical support for this position is weak. Others such as Litzenberger and Ramaswamy (1979, 1982), Blume (1980), and Ang and Peterson (1985) take the opposite position. Their studies report that stocks with high dividend payout ratios have higher required returns and therefore lower prices. Still others such as Black and Scholes (1974), Miller and Scholes (1978, 1982), Miller (1986), and Bernstein (1996) maintain that dividend policy makes no difference because it has no effect on either stock prices or the cost of equity. Researchers have tested these alternative theories of dividend policy but have not obtained conclusive results. Thus, the issue of which explanation of dividend policy is most correct remains unresolved. Explanations for Paying Dividends The finance literature contains four standard explanations for paying dividendssignaling, taxpreference, agency costs, and birdinthehand. The signaling, or asymmetric information, models for paying dividends, developed by Bhattacharya (1979), John and Williams (1985), and Miller and Rock (1985), suggest that managers as insiders choose dividend payment levels and dividend increases to signal private information to investors. Managers have an incentive to signal this private information to the investment public when they believe that the current market value of their firm39。s discretionary free cash flow that could be used to fund suboptimal investments that benefit managers but dim