Managing employee relations in the hotel and catering industry

Abstract

We hypothesize that managers use stock dividends or splits to cater to gambling investors who are willing to pay a premium for stocks with lottery-like features. Using proprietary account-level trading records, we find that retail investors, particularly those with a strong gambling preference, become strong net buyers following the announcement of stock dividends, while professional investors unload their holdings. Moreover, we find that positive market reactions to stock dividends is positively associated with increases in gambling investors.