Investor Tax Heterogeneity and Ex-Dividend Day Trading Volume

We propose that ex-dividend day excess volume is motivated by tax heterogeneity among investors, and thus is increasing in investor tax heterogeneity. Institutional ownership is our measure of heterogeneity. Since investor heterogeneity is a concave function of institutional ownership, we hypothesize that ex-day volume is a concave function of institutional ownership. Cross-sectional tests support the tax-motivated trading hypothesis. Additional tests, using trade size and pension ownership as proxies for institutional trades, yield similar results. We contribute to the literature by considering the interaction between payout policy and ownership structure in explaining the cross-sectional variation in ex-day volume.