Value Of Corporate Cash Holdings Research Articles

The value of corporate cash holdings during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the value of corporate cash holdings during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a sample of 147,512 firm-quarter observations of 51 countries, I find that the value of cash holdings strongly increased at the start of the pandemic in 2021, but diminished again in the later part of the pandemic. Using country-level measures of the impact of the pandemic, I further document that the value of cash is higher for firms that are located in countries with higher infection rates of COVID-19. Finally, I find that the positive effect of COVID-19 on the value of cash holdings is stronger in weak corporate governance countries with high infection rates in the first year of the pandemic, which is consistent with the argument that the likelihood of cash abuse is reduced in countries with weak corporate governance where COVID-19 hits hard.

Top executive gender, corporate culture, and the value of corporate cash holdings

We document that firms run by female executives are associated with a significantly greater value for their cash holdings. In these firms, the marginal value of one dollar is $1.39, while the comparable value is $0.90 for male managed firms. Further, the marginal value of cash holdings for firms run by female CEOs (CFOs) is $1.56 ($1.47) compared to $0.94 ($0.91) for firms with male CEOs (CFOs). The significant difference in the value of cash holdings may be attributed to the gender-based female executives’ traits that permeate a myriad of corporate decisions with superior outcomes that cumulatively manifest in the market assigning a higher value to cash holdings by these firms. The effect is more pronounced in firms with any of the following characteristics: financially unconstrained, cash distributing, weak governance, low institutional investors’ monitoring, and low audit quality. Adding another new dimension to the literature, we show that corporate culture is a potential determinant of the value of cash holdings. Specifically, we document that female led firms are associated with a more salubrious corporate environment manifesting in a greater value assigned to corporate cash holdings. Our results are robust to a battery of robustness tests.

Board diversity and the marginal value of corporate cash holdings

Using the Blau index, this study measures board diversity and uses data on A-share companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen between 2011 and 2020 to investigate how board diversity affects the marginal value of corporate cash holdings. We find that greater board diversity indicates a greater marginal value of corporate cash holdings. Board independence, property rights, and environmental dynamism moderate the relationship between board diversity and the marginal value of corporate cash holdings. Further mechanism analysis shows that high-diversity boards improve the marginal value of corporate cash holdings by alleviating agency problems and increasing firms' resources. This study provides new ideas and evidence for discussing how macro- and micro-factors affect corporate governance. Furthermore, the results provide a reference for accounting information users to analyze corporate value and make reasonable investment decisions.

Protection of trade secrets and value of cash holdings: Evidence from a natural experiment

We examine whether the protection of trade secrets by restricting the mobility of knowledgeable employees through the adoption of the legal Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD), an exogenous event, increases the marginal value of corporate cash holdings by reducing the uncertainty of future cash flows, and how that value differs across firms in IDD recognizing and non- recognizing states. We find that the marginal value of cash holdings increases (decreases) significantly in states in which the IDD has (not) been recognized through increases (decreases) in firm value and performance. A battery of robustness tests reveals that the effect of the IDD is more pronounced in firms with high R&D activities. Overall, the evidence shows that the IDD acts as a mechanism that inhibits the mobility of key employees and, thus, reduces the probability of the misappropriation of knowledge-based human capital assets. That is, the IDD creates an opportunity for firms to efficiently use cash to increase firm value - rather than using cash to protect trade secrets from rivals.

How Does Firm‐Specific Investor Sentiment Affect the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings?

AbstractWe document a positive relation between firm‐specific investor sentiment (FSIS) and the value of cash. We also show that FSIS has a stronger positive effect on the value of cash than the value of other types of assets, suggesting that our finding is not a simple reflection of firm‐level overvaluation. Our finding is robust to alternative measures of change in cash, different cash regimes, FSIS measured by order imbalance, news sentiment and the tone of earnings conference call transcripts and controlling for market‐wide sentiment, institutional monitoring, corporate governance and endogeneity. Cross‐sectional analyses suggest that the positive relation between FSIS and the value of cash is stronger for firms with better future growth opportunities, larger investment, more innovation activities, higher information asymmetry and more liquid stocks. Overall, our paper sheds light on the important role of FSIS in corporate outcomes.

Board Diversity and Marginal Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

Board Diversity and Marginal Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

Do CEO's political promotion incentives influence the value of cash holdings: Evidence from state-owned enterprises in China

Our paper examines the effect of CEOs' political promotion incentives on the value of corporate cash holdings using the setting of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China. We find that the value of cash holdings is significantly decreased when CEOs in SOEs receive political promotion. This effect is more pronounced when these CEOs are subject to less monetary and equity incentive, more promotion pressure, higher political rank, and less external supervision. Further analysis shows that these CEOs are more likely to engage in social activities and vanity projects rather than paying cash dividends and increasing innovation investments to create shareholder wealth. Overall, our study shows that political promotion incentives bring new agency conflicts between CEOs and shareholders, and these CEOs are driven by personal benefits to exploit cash resource, resulting in a valuation discount for cash holdings.

Cash Is Not Always King: Economic Policy Uncertainty and the Marginal Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

This paper studies the relation between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and the marginal value of corporate cash holdings. We find that the markets place a lower value on firms’ cash holdings under high level of EPU. Our quasi-experiment tests relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the gubernatorial elections support the causal relationship between EPU and the value of cash holdings. Further, we show that this relation is more pronounced for firms with less redeployable capital assets, more investment opportunities, poor corporate governance, or positive excess cash. Overall, our evidence suggests that cash is not always king especially in periods of high uncertainty of policies.

Measuring the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings against Predictable and Unpredictable Negative Shocks

This paper explores how cash mitigates predictable and unpredictable adverse cash flow shocks to firms using the financial data of Japanese firms. We find that (i) cash has no value after the predicted shock regardless of the severity of the financial constraint, (ii) after the unpredicted shock, the value of cash for the financially constrained firms is larger than that for the unconstrained firms, and (iii) the value of cash is similar between the two shocks for the unconstrained firms, while the value is larger when the unpredicted shock occurs than when the predicted shock occurs for the constrained firms.

Cross-listing and the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings : Evidence from China

This paper examines how cross-listing of Chinese A- and Hong Kong H-shares (AH cross-listed) affects the value of corporate cash holdings. Using a sample of AH cross-listed firms, we find that the value of cash holdings is higher for cross-listed than for non-cross-listed firms. The results remain robust to alternative measures of change in cash and consideration of state-owned enterprises. The AH cross-listing valuation premium for cash holdings decreases after a governance reform in the Chinese stock market. Our results suggest that AH cross-listing enhances firms’ transparency and disclosure, and thereby the value of cash holdings relative to non-cross-listed companies.

Predatory Pricing and the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

We analyze the interaction between firms' payout policies and their decisions in product markets in a continuous-time stochastic game between two firms. One of these is financially constrained, whereas the other is not. Contrary to the standard literature we allow firms to choose production and payout strategies, and focus on the effect of predation incentives on both. We find that predation induces fewer dividend payouts. Furthermore, the liquidity position of the constrained firm has an economically significant effect on the production choices of both firms and, thus, on the evolution of profits, cash holdings and stock returns.

Derivatives use and the value of cash holdings: Evidence from the U.S. oil and gas industry

AbstractWe examine the effect of the oil and gas firms' use of derivatives for hedging risks on the marginal value of cash holdings. Analyzing 155 U.S. oil and gas producers from 1998 to 2017, we find that the use of derivatives for hedging risks, especially oil and gas‐related risk, reduces the marginal value of corporate cash holdings. Furthermore, the effect of using derivatives is stronger for firms exposed to higher risk. Our findings imply that cash holdings and derivatives use act as substitutes in hedging risk in this industry.

Geographical proximity and value of corporate cash holdings

PurposeIn this paper, the authors examine the association between a firm's geographical location and the value of its cash holdings.Design/methodology/approachFollowing Loughran and Schultz (2005) and Nielsson and Wójcik (2016), the authors define firms as either geographically remote or geographically proximate based on their distance to areas that are either largely populated or concentrated in financial expertise. We also estimate the marginal value of cash using the model developed by Faulkender and Wang (2006).FindingsThe authors find that the marginal value of cash is $0.10–$0.16 lower in remotely located firms than in geographically proximate firms. The lower marginal value of cash is prominent among remotely located firms with greater severity of information asymmetry. Our findings support the view that the inability of shareholders to closely monitor how managers use of firm cash may increase the perceived conflicts of interest associated with managers' cash spending and decrease the value of cash.Originality/valuePrevious studies try to explain the cash holdings puzzle by attributing it to CEO overconfidence, external funding constraints, poor corporate governance, difference in corporate financial policy, poor investor protection, lack of firm diversification and large operating losses. This study contributes to the extant literature by offering new evidence of the role of geographic location on the value of cash holdings.

When is cash king? International evidence on the value of cash across the business cycle

Precautionary-motive theory implies that corporate cash holdings should be valued at a premium during recessions when uncertainty is high. However, from an agency-conflict perspective, business downturns aggravate agency problems, and investors tend to discount the value of corporate cash holdings during recessions. We test two hypotheses derived from these competing perspectives by examining the value of cash across different phases of the business cycle, using a sample of firms from 41 economies over the 1991–2016 period. Our results show that $1 of cash is valued about $0.67–$0.70 higher during a boom than during a recession, supporting the agency-conflict hypothesis. Our analyses show that this effect is not sensitive to national uncertainty-avoidance tendencies but varies with different levels of investor protection. These results confirm that investors discount the value of cash during recessions due to concerns about severe agency conflicts, and that investor protection mitigates this discount.

기업 다각화가 현금보유의 한계가치에 미치는 영향

기업 다각화가 현금보유의 한계가치에 미치는 영향

Economic Cycle, Uncertainty of Economic Policy and Cash Holding of Listed Companies

Based on the systematic review and economic analysis of the theoretical literature, we consider not only the impact of the economic cycle or the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the cash holding ratio, but also the comprehensive impact of the two on the cash holding rate. We raise the research hypothesis by using the data from 2004-2015 in the A-share listed companies which are listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen securities exchange as research samples. The empirical results show that: 1) There are respectively negative correlation between the economic cycle and the cash holding of listed companies, and positive correlation between the EPU and the cash holding. 2) During the boom, the cash holdings are significantly positive with the current EPU and the last stage; during the recession, the cash holdings of listed companies is significantly negatively correlated with the current EPU, while positive with the last stage. 3) We further examine the role of the economic cycle and the EPU on the cash holding value, and find that EPU will reduce the cash holding value. 4) When the economy is booming, the increase in EPU will reduce the market value of corporate cash holdings, but it is not significant. During recession, the increase in EPU will increase the market value of cash holdings.

CEO overconfidence and the value of corporate cash holdings

Cash holding is on average more valuable when firms are managed by overconfident CEOs. Economically, having an overconfident CEO on board is associated with an increase of $0.28 in the value of $1.00 cash holding. The positive effect of CEO overconfidence on the value of cash concentrates among firms that are more likely to suffer from the underinvestment problem (i.e., financially constrained firms which exhibit high growth opportunities). In addition, CEO overconfidence affects negatively the value of cash in firms that are financially unconstrained, a finding which is consistent with the overinvestment hypothesis. The results are robust to various tests and alternative explanations.

LABOR UNIONS AND CORPORATE CASH HOLDINGS: EVIDENCE FROM INTERNATIONAL DATA

AbstractFirms in countries with higher union membership have less corporate cash holdings. This negative relation is stronger for firms in countries with weak employment protection legislation, firms in countries with a high degree of labor bargaining centralization, and financially constrained firms. Moreover, the market value of corporate cash holdings is lower for firms in countries with high union membership. The number of strikes and lockouts is higher in countries with more corporate cash holdings. We conclude that firms strategically choose corporate cash holdings to gain a bargaining position with labor in an international setting.

Cyclicality of growth opportunities and the value of cash holdings

We show that business cycle dynamics and, in particular, the cyclicality of a firm’s growth opportunities, determine the value of corporate cash holdings. An additional dollar of cash is more valuable for firms with less procyclical expansion opportunities. This valuation effect is strongest for low leverage and high R&D firms, but is independent of their financial status. Corporate cash holdings provide the flexibility to invest for firms that have expansion opportunities during crisis times with business cycle downturns and supply-side financial constraints. Cash holdings in firms with less procyclical growth opportunities are associated with higher investment and better operating performance.

Why Has the Value of Cash Increased Over Time?

The value of corporate cash holdings has increased significantly in recent decades. On average, $1 of cash is valued at $0.61 in the 1980s, $1.04 in the 1990s, and $1.12 in the 2000s. This increase is predominantly driven by the investment opportunity set and cash-flow volatility, as well as secular trends in product market competition, credit market risk, and within-firm diversification. We document a secular decrease in the speed of adjustment (SOA) in cash holdings, particularly for financially constrained firms with cash deficits, suggesting that capital market frictions can account for the trend in the value of cash holdings.