中文摘要：

本文呆用2004-2012年沪深A股上市公司为研究样本，通过分析金字塔控股结构所带来的两权分离度与股利的相关关系来探究最终控制人性质不同的公司进行股利分配的动机，同时研究了在股利分配动机不同时外资股东对股利分配水平的影响。研究表明，国有控股公司的股利分配水平高于非国有控股公司，而其高股利分配的动机源于利用股利作为掩饰大股东掏空行为的“面具”；这一动机在非国有控股公司中不显著。在国有控股公司中，外资持股通过降低股利分配水平的方式抑制了公司掩饰掏空的动机，且英美法系股东的这一作用更为显著。

英文摘要：

By adopting the sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2004 to 2008 to set up panel model, this paper studies the motivation for firms with different ultimate ownership types to pay out cash dividends through examining the relationship between the separation of ownership right and control right which is brought by the pyramidal ownership structure and the cash dividend. Meanwhile, this paper examines the effects of foreign shareholding on cash dividends under different dividend payment motivations. The results show that： the level of dividend payment is higher for state-controlled firms, and their major motivation to pay higher dividend is to use dividend as the ＂mask＂ to conceal the tunneling behavior of controlling shareholder; while such kind of motivation is not significant in privately-held firms. The increase of foreign shareholding in state-controlled firms would constrain the motivation to mask the tunneling behavior by reducing the dividend payment level, and such effect would be more significant when the foreign shareholders come from the common law countries.