In 2013, the J.P. Morgan Asset Management division of JPMorgan Chase released a report examining the average annual return of companies that initiated and grew their dividend between 1972 and 2012, as compared with publicly traded companies that didn't pay a dividend over the same period.

Dividend stocks averaged a 9.5% annual return over the four decades, whereas the stocks that didn't pay dividends delivered a paltry annualized return of 1.6%.

once you reach the high-yield space (4% and up), yield and risk tend to be correlated.