  This paper considers the optimal dividend payment problem in
piecewise-deterministic compound Poisson risk models. The objective is to
maximize the expected discounted dividend payout up to the time of ruin. We
provide a comparative study in this general framework of both restricted and
unrestricted payment schemes, which were only previously treated separately in
certain special cases of risk models in the literature. In the case of
restricted payment scheme, the value function is shown to be a classical
solution of the corresponding HJB equation, which in turn leads to an optimal
restricted payment policy known as the threshold strategy. In the case of
unrestricted payment scheme, by solving the associated integro-differential
quasi-variational inequality, we obtain the value function as well as an
optimal unrestricted dividend payment scheme known as the barrier strategy.
When claim sizes are exponentially distributed, we provide easily verifiable
conditions under which the threshold and barrier strategies are optimal
restricted and unrestricted dividend payment policies, respectively. The main
results are illustrated with several examples, including a new example
concerning regressive growth rates.
