Fair value accounting and corporate cash holdings

Abstract

A trade-off often exists between relevance and reliability of accounting numbers. Prior research suggests that fair value accounting increases the relevance and decreases the reliability. The reduced reliability may lead to more agency conflicts. We predict a positive relation between the use of fair value inputs and the level of corporate cash holdings because prior research links more agency conflicts to a higher level of cash. We find that increased use of fair value inputs is associated with a higher level of cash holdings, and the results are mainly driven by Level 1 and Level 2 fair value inputs. In addition, we find that our results are stronger for firms with more-able managers.