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What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate]
As a thought experiment I suppose we can ask where dividends came from and what would be different if they never existed. The VOC or Dutch East India Companywas the first to IPO, sell shares and also have a dividend.   There had been trade entrepot before the VOC, the bulk cog (type of sea-going ship) trade in the Hanseatic League, but the VOC innovation was to pool capital to build giant spice freighters - more expensive than a merchant partnership could likely finance (and stand to lose at sea) on their own but more efficient than the cogs and focused on a trade good with more value.  The Dutch Republic became rich by this capital formed to pursue high value trade. Without dividends this wouldn't have been an innovation in seventeenth century Europe and enterprises would be only as large as say the contemporary merchant family networks of Venice could finance.  So there could be large partnerships, family businesses and debt financed ventures but no corporations as such.