Examining Growth Yield: McDonald's, Ross Stores And Scana Corp. - Seeking Alpha

I received a comment/question from Jeff Paul, a fellow author and contributor to Seeking Alpha on my recent article “Yield On Cost Is A Valuable Investing Tool: McDonald’s Vs. Procter & Gamble.” Jeff's question provided me the opportunity to expand more on the important concept of yield on cost, which I prefer to call “growth yield.” Here is Jeff’s question, as follows:

Nice article, Chuck. Lots to think about. There is one statement that I would like you to clarify. "A rapidly expanding yield on cost definitely contributed to McDonald’s (MCD) strong performance…" Seems like that is putting the cart before the horse. I would argue that McDonald's strong performance (i.e. earnings growth), coupled with its decision to increase the payout to shareholders, led to higher dividend growth, which therefore rapidly expanded YOC. I don't see how YOC, which is dependent on the dividend payout decision, would contribute to MCD's stock performance.