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New Estimates of Dividend Payments
How the present source of dividend data has come to an end and how alternative sources have been developed by the ONS.
Dividend payments are an important component in the accounts of the corporate and household sectors. This article describes how the present source of dividend data has come to an end and how alternative sources have been developed by the ONS.
These new sources of data were developed in an internal ONS project which was carried out by Caroline Duggan between September 1998 and June 1999. They have revealed interesting trends in dividend payments made by the private non-financial sector and the proportion paid by unquoted companies.
Dividend payments are both a distribution of income by companies and a form of property income received by shareholders. They are an important variable in the National Accounts, shown among uses in the allocation of the primary income account of non-financial and financial corporations’ sectors and among resources in the allocation of the primary income account of the shareholders’ sectors. As such, dividends affect the money available for capital expenditure and consumer spending.
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