In this paper, we examine the impact of government ownership on dividend policy in case of Viet Nam and Taiwan. We find a strong evidence that government ownership has a positive impact on dividend payout in both countries. Additionally, firms with government ownership tend to pay higher dividend than firms without government ownership. Our findings suggest that the impacts of government ownership on dividend policy in both countries can be explained by the substitute hypothesis of agency theory (La Porta, 2000). We also discover that firms with government ownership in both countries pay higher dividend than the firms without government ownership.

Keywords: Government ownership, Dividend policy, Agency theory.