5 STOCK DIVIDENDS mately comparable dates at the beginning and ending of each of the seven-year periods under discussion. FOURTEEN YEARS DIVIDENDS OF CORPORATIONS ISSUING STOCK DIVIDENDS, 1920-1926 Of the corporations whose stock dividends and capitalization are presented in Appendix 4, 4,967 reported dividends—eash, stock, and other—to the commission from 1913 to 1926, inclusive. The majority of corporations in this group closed their books as of December 31. In all these cases, therefore, the first seven-year period for dividends issued or paid is from January 1, 1913, to Decem- ber 31, 1919, and the second from January 1, 1920, to December 31, 1926. Where the books were closed on some other date, however, some corporations may have reported the dividends as of the fiscal year rather than the calendar year. As a full seven years is covered for each period, however, the discrepancy in time involved is not Iportms A comparison of the dividends is shown in the following table: TasLE 2.—Cash, stock, and other dwidends paid in the seven-year periods, 1913-1919 and 1920-1926, by 4,967 corporations paying stock dwidends in the latter period and reporting on dwidends for the 14 years, 1913-1926 1 First 7 years Second 7 years iy Increase (+) or decrease (=) in second period Kind of dividend Amount Per cent of total A mount Per cent of total Amount | Per cent +80. 35 +780. 27 —11. 62 4178.83 1 For qualification of figures with respect to comparison of the two periods, see footnote to Table 1 and text accompanving that table. ash ea Stock. aes Ofher tose Jt 83.49 14.35 2.16 $5, 602, 724, 808 4,777, 373, 300 72,216, 952 In the first seven-year period stock dividends composed 15 per cent of the total dividends issued by the group of 4,967, whereas, in the second period they amounted to over 45 per cent. In the first period cash dividends aggregated over 83 per cent of the total. In the second they had fallen to 54 per cent. It should be noted, how- ever, that despite this relative decline in cash dividends in the second period, an absolute increase occurred in the amount of such dividends aggregating over 80 per cent. This absolute increase, however, is small as compared with that of nearly 800 per cent shown by the stock dividends. CAPITALIZATION AND DIVIDENDS FOR 14 YEARS FOR CORPORA- TIONS REPORTING STOCK DIVIDENDS, 1920-1926 While the foregoing group of 4,967 corporations paying stock divi- dends during 1920-1926, reported on dividends for the entire 14- year period from 1913 to 1926, inclusive, the stock capitalization of