Isakov, Dušan Keane, Allister Schatt, Alain 2025 This study examines the dividend policy of Swiss state-owned banks during the recent economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our empirical analysis shows that these banks had higher pre-crisis dividend payouts than other Swiss banks. While other banks reduced dividend payouts during the crisis, state-owned banks maintained higher dividend levels and consistent payout ratios throughout the economic downturn. Thus, the gap between state-owned banks and other banks increased from 18% before the crisis to 24% during the crisis. Moreover, we document that these higher payouts are not due to higher profitability of state-owned banks. Finally, we find no significant differences in dividend yields except when comparing public and private state-owned banks. Overall, this study provides evidence of the significant influence of dominant state shareholders on banks› financial policies in times of economic crisis. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/331830 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/331830/files/WP_SES_541.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.51363/unifr.ewp.5m3qw2 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/3042-7517 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY-NC State-owned banks economic crisis payout ratio dividend yield Switzerland info:eu-repo/classification/udc/33 The dividend policy of state-owned banks during an economic crisis http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_18ws