中文摘要：

本文考查机构投资者对上市公司红利派送动机的甄别能力。我们发现，当公司出于降低代理成本目的而分红时，机构投资者会入主上市公司，并且其持股比例与红利水平正相关；反之，如果上市公司进行过度分红以侵占小股东利益时，机构投资者则不会入主。进一步研究发现，当机构投资者入主时，股票市场能够赋予分红公司更高的价值（红利溢价）；并且，机构投资者持股比例越高，红利溢价也越高，说明市场认可机构投资者的甄别能力。本文的研究表明，机构投资者能够在一定程度上识别上市公司派现的真实目的，其快速成长有助于监督上市公司的分红模式，从而也有助于证券市场的健康发展。

英文摘要：

This paper examines institutional investors＇ ability to discriminate cash dividend incentive of listed companies. The authors find that once firms distribute cash dividends to assuage agency cost, institutional investors will invest the firm and their shareholdings increase with the dividend level. Instead, once the listed firms pay excessive cash dividend for controlling shareholders to cash out, institutional investors will not invest. Still further, there is dividend premium when institutional investors are among top ten shareholders in the listed firms, and the premium increases with shareholding of the institutional shareholders. This study provides the evidence that institutional investors are sophisticated enough to discriminate cash dividend incentive of listed companies. It suggests that the fast development of institutional investors is beneficial for monitoring the dividend behavior of listed firms, and contributes to the healthy development of the capital market.