Hagos, Alem (PhD)Tesfaye, Tadele2018-07-022023-11-082018-07-022023-11-082017-01http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/5216The dividend policy is one of the most debatable topics within corporate finance and some academics have called the company’s dividend policy unsolved puzzle. Even though a lot of researches regarding dividends have been conducted, there is no uniform answer to the question: what are the determinants of the companies’ dividend policy? Therefore,the researcher of this study decided to conduct a study regarding the determinants of dividend policy of Ethiopian private banks using bank specific factors and macro variables. The main objective of this study was to identify the determinants of dividend policy of Ethiopian private banks. To answer the objective of the study, explanatory and descriptive study used&the data covered the period from 2000-2015 for the sample of sixEthiopian private banks and used secondary and primary data. Both bank specific and macroeconomic variables were analyzed by employing the balanced panel fixed effect regression model andthe study used dividend policy as a dependent variable and seven independent variables; they are profit, leverage, liquidity, retained earnings, loan loss provision, lagged dividend payout, economic growth rate and inflation rate. The result of the study revealed that profit, leverage, and lagged dividend payment have positive and statistically significant impacts on dividend policy of Ethiopian private banks while retained earnings, loan loss provision, inflation have negative and statistically significant impact on dividend policy of Ethiopian private banks whereas liquidity and economic growth rate were found to be statistically insignificant and have no any impact on dividend policy of Ethiopian private banks. Keywords: Dividend policy, Ethiopian private banks, bank specific factors, macro variablesen-USDividend policyEthiopian private banksBank specific factorsMacro variablesThesis