The dates are sorted by decending year I possess the complete announcement dates (20070630) though for the purposes of this exercise not neccessarily needed. The last observation for any given permno would be the earliest date recorded that the company paid a dividend. e.g.: What record would have 1 for Initiation column for PERMNO 10001? For each of the permn numbers the very first record. So for permno 10006 the first 1926 observation recorded would have a 1. and for permno 10001 the first 1986 observation recorded would have a 1. e.g.: Omission example. Hypothetically, if permno 10001 paid a dividend in 1990. But there is no record for a dividend payment in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995 (or longer). The record in 1990 would have a 1 coressponding to omission. e.g.: Change example. In 1957 permno 1006 paid a dividend of $1, the proceeding year of 1958 this dropped to 0.625. Then the 1958 observation for permno 1006 would have a corresponding 1 value in the change column. Hope this makes sense!
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