本文起源于对两个现象的观察：包括中国、日本、韩国在内多个国家的资本市场监管机构在持续出台政策鼓励有能力的上市公司增加分红；除了关注财务报表所反映的经营业绩，近年来上市公司的分红变化也受到各国投资者更多的讨论。这两个现象说明，分红变化可能传递了额外的信息。鉴于此，本文以A股上市公司分红事件数据，在控制企业基本特征、市场关注度、分红意愿及难以测度的个体固有差异的条件下，探究分红变化中传递了哪些关于未来的信息。实证研究发现：①分红变化传递了关于未来经营状况的信息，增加分红传递的信息是未来更安全的经营状况，如更低的现金流波动性、更强的盈利能力、更低但更稳定的收入增速，和更稳定的股东回报意愿。②A股早期的分红变化中信息含量更少，这是因为过去经济的高速增长提高了企业增加分红的机会成本，投资者也更关注收入利润的变化趋势而非分红，导致过去管理层通过分红传递信息的成本高收益低。③央国企和民企的分红变化均传递了关于未来现金流波动性的信息，但央国企的分红变化中关于未来营收能力、分红意愿等方面的信息少于民企。④分红变化中的信息含量是非线性的，降低分红比增加分红传递了更多的信息，更大的分红变化也不意味着更多的信息含量。⑤现金分红比率的变化没有传递关于未来的信息。以行业分红比率作为工具变量控制模型中的内生性问题、改变因变量度量的时间区间和频率、将自变量分红变化排序以控制信息含量的非线性后，发现上述结论依然稳健。本文的研究为分红的信号理论提供了新的见解和实证证据，公司管理层和外部投资者要更加重视分红变化这一高成本但高可信度的信息传递渠道。本文也为证监会2023年以来鼓励上市公司增加分红的政策导向提供了实证支持，鼓励上市公司增加分红有助于缓解资本市场的信息不对称，遏制管理层对现金的非效率占用，助力我国资本市场实现由“投机市”、“融资市”向“投资市”的转型。

This article originates from the observation of two phenomena: regulatory authorities of the capital markets in various countries, including China, Japan, and South Korea, have been continuously implementing policies to encourage capable listed companies to increase dividends. In addition to focusing on the operating performance reflected in the financial statements, the changes in dividends of listed companies have also attracted more discussions among investors from various countries in recent years. These two phenomena indicate that changes in dividends may convey additional information. In light of this, this article explores the information about the future conveyed by the changes in dividends of A-share listed companies, controlling for corporate characteristics, market attention, dividend intentions, and unmeasurable individual inherent differences, using dividend event data in China.Empirical research has found: (1) Changes in dividends convey information about future cash flow volatility, with an increase in dividends followed by lower future cash flow volatility. (2) The early changes in dividends in A-shares contained less information, as the rapid economic growth of the past increased the opportunity cost for companies to increase dividends. Investors were more focused on the trends in revenue and profit rather than on dividends, resulting in a high cost but low benefit for management to convey information through dividends. (3) Both state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises‘ changes in dividends convey information about future cash flow volatility, but the changes in dividends from SOEs contain less information about future revenue capabilities and dividend intentions compared to private enterprises. (4) The information content in dividend changes is nonlinear; decreasing dividends convey more information than increasing dividends, and larger changes in dividends do not necessarily mean more information content. (5) Changes in the cash dividend payout ratio did not convey information about the future.Using the industry dividend ratio as an instrumental variable to control for the endogeneity problem in the model, changing the measurement time intervals and frequencies of the dependent variable, and ranking the independent variable of dividend changes to control for the nonlinearity of information content, the above conclusions remain robust.This research provides new insights and empirical evidence for the dividend signaling theory, suggesting that company management and external investors should pay more attention to changes in dividends as a high-cost but highly credible channel of information transmission. The study also provides empirical support for the policy orientation of the China Securities Regulatory Commission since 2023 to encourage listed companies to increase dividends, suggesting that encouraging listed companies to increase dividends can help alleviate information asymmetry in the capital market, curb the inefficient occupation of cash by management, and assist in the transformation of China‘s capital market from a "speculative market" and "financing market" to an "investment market".