STOCK DIVIDENDS

The following table shows the amounts of stock dividends paid by
these 2,846 corporations for the periods 1913-1919 and 1920-1926,
respectively:

TABLE 4.—Cash, stock, and other dividends paid in the 7-year periods, 1913-1919
and 1920-1926, by 2,846 corporations paying stock dividends in the latter period
and reporting on dividends for 14 years, 1913-1926 1

First 7 years

Second 7 years

Increase (+) or decrease
(=) in second period

Kind of dividends

Amount

Per cent
of total

Amount

Per cent
of total

DAES earner)
BLOCK ocunamwsivnis
DEBE oer cer]
Petal...

$1, 437, 244, 878
252, 809, 605
59, 433, 475
1,749. 577. 958

82.15
14. 45
3.40

$2, 647, 142, 380
2,350, 246, 652
18, 043, 667

52.78
46. 86
136
100.00 |

100. 00

5,015, 432, 609

eee ee ee ——
1 For qualification of the ficures with reference to comparability see Table 1.

Amount

Per cent

+1, 209, 897, 502
+2, 097, 347, 047
—41, 389, 808
+3, 265, 854, 741

4-84.18
+820. 32
—69. 64
+186. 67
———

A comparison of the stock dividends in this table with the increase
in stock capitalization in the first and second periods (Table 3) shows
that of the total increase in stock capitalization in the second period
amounting to $3,066,918,746, stock dividends contributed $2,350,-246,652
 or over 76 per cent of the grand total, while in the earlier
seven years stock dividends aggregated only 44 per cent of the net
increase. It should be noted that the percentage increases in stock,
cash, and total dividends for these 2,846 corporations as between the
first and second periods are approximately the same as those for the
larger group of 4,967 cerporations for which dividends for 14 years
were available, although the size of the former group is less than 60
per cent of the latter (Table 2).

COMPARATIVE DIVIDENDS OF CORPORATIONS ISSUING STOCK
DIVIDENDS IN ANY YEAR 1913-1926

All of the foregoing tabulations are subject to bias because in the
selection of the companies for comparison the criterion employed is
the distribution of stock dividends subsequent to the Supreme Court
decision. These tabulations, therefore, do not include any companies
 issuing stock dividends in the seven years prior to the stock
dividend decision and none since. They do include, however, many
companies which issued stock dividends in the later but not in the
earlier period.
Adding those companies which issued stock dividends in the first
but not in the second period the total number of companies reporting
dividends from 1913 to 1926 is increased by 303 or, from 10,225
shown in Table 1 to 10,528. Similarly, the number of companies
reporting dividends for the full 14 years is increased by 222 or, from
4,967 (Table 2) to 5,189. For the companies which are approximately
comparable both for dividends and capitalization the increase was
only 125 or from 2,846 (Table 4) to 2,971.
The following table shows the amounts of stock and cash dividends
issued by these three groups of corporations after including those
companies which issued stock dividends in the seven years 1913-1919,
but not in the seven years, 1920-1926: