One position expressed in the financial literature is that firms set their dividends as a residual after using income to support new investment.
a. Explain what a residual policy implies (assuming all distributions as dividends), illustrating your answer with a table showing how different investment opportunities could lead to different dividend payout ratios.
b. Think back to Chapter 16, in which we considered the relationship between capital structure and the cost of capital. If the WACC-versus-debt-ratio plot was shaped like a sharp V, would this have a different implication for the importance of setting dividends according to the residual policy than if the plot was shaped like a shallow bowl (or a flattened U)?