IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joecas/v26y2022ics1703494922000330.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cash holdings: International evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Alves, Duarte
  • Alves, Paulo
  • Carvalho, Luis
  • Pais, Claudio

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to study how firms’ cash holdings have recently performed. We have not only used GMM approach, but also a pioneer econometric approach to evaluate the determinants of firms’ cash holdings, ML-SEM. The results are more robust in comparison with those obtained using GMM. Our results showed that cash holdings have increased during the 2008 financial crisis and rose significantly after that time. The exception were firms placed in the United States and emerging markets. We have found that cash holdings, in general, were positively influenced by the banking system and capital market, although the results have been more robust for the first variable. Our results also showed that the development of the rule of law and shareholder rights lead to a decrease on firms’ cash holdings, which confirms the agency theory as an explanation of firms’ cash holdings.

Suggested Citation

  • Alves, Duarte & Alves, Paulo & Carvalho, Luis & Pais, Claudio, 2022. "Cash holdings: International evidence," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joecas:v:26:y:2022:i:c:s1703494922000330
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeca.2022.e00273
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1703494922000330
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeca.2022.e00273?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gao, Huasheng & Harford, Jarrad & Li, Kai, 2013. "Determinants of corporate cash policy: Insights from private firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 623-639.
    2. Dittmar, Amy & Mahrt-Smith, Jan & Servaes, Henri, 2003. "International Corporate Governance and Corporate Cash Holdings," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 111-133, March.
    3. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    4. Ozkan, Aydin & Ozkan, Neslihan, 2004. "Corporate cash holdings: An empirical investigation of UK companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2103-2134, September.
    5. Song, Kyojik (Roy) & Lee, Youngjoo, 2012. "Long-Term Effects of a Financial Crisis: Evidence from Cash Holdings of East Asian Firms," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(3), pages 617-641, June.
    6. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    7. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    8. Ivalina Kalcheva & Karl V. Lins, 2007. "International Evidence on Cash Holdings and Expected Managerial Agency Problems," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1087-1112.
    9. Lins, Karl V., 2003. "Equity Ownership and Firm Value in Emerging Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 159-184, March.
    10. Opler, Tim & Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene & Williamson, Rohan, 1999. "The determinants and implications of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-46, April.
    11. Dittmar, Amy & Mahrt-Smith, Jan, 2007. "Corporate governance and the value of cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 599-634, March.
    12. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2002. "Investor Protection and Corporate Valuation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1147-1170, June.
    13. Stijn Claessens & Simeon Djankov & Joseph P. H. Fan & Larry H. P. Lang, 2002. "Disentangling the Incentive and Entrenchment Effects of Large Shareholdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2741-2771, December.
    14. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    15. Basil Al‐Najjar & Yacine Belghitar, 2011. "Corporate cash holdings and dividend payments: evidence from simultaneous analysis," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 231-241, June.
    16. Paulo, Alves, 2018. "Abnormal retained earnings around the world," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 63-74.
    17. Lee Pinkowitz & René M. Stulz & Rohan Williamson, 2016. "Do U.S. Firms Hold More Cash than Foreign Firms Do?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 309-348.
    18. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    19. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene M. & Williamson, Rohan, 2013. "Is There a U.S. High Cash Holdings Puzzle after the Financial Crisis?," Working Paper Series 2013-07, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    21. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    22. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1777-1804 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    24. Lars Leszczensky & Tobias Wolbring, 2022. "How to Deal With Reverse Causality Using Panel Data? Recommendations for Researchers Based on a Simulation Study," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 51(2), pages 837-865, May.
    25. Bliss, Barbara A. & Cheng, Yingmei & Denis, David J., 2015. "Corporate payout, cash retention, and the supply of credit: Evidence from the 2008–2009 credit crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 521-540.
    26. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    27. Graham, John R. & Leary, Mark T. & Roberts, Michael R., 2015. "A century of capital structure: The leveraging of corporate America," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 658-683.
    28. Kahle, Kathleen M. & Stulz, René M., 2013. "Access to capital, investment, and the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 280-299.
    29. Al-Najjar, Basil, 2013. "The financial determinants of corporate cash holdings: Evidence from some emerging markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 77-88.
    30. Fritz Foley, C. & Hartzell, Jay C. & Titman, Sheridan & Twite, Garry, 2007. "Why do firms hold so much cash? A tax-based explanation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 579-607, December.
    31. Miguel A. Ferreira & Antonio S. Vilela, 2004. "Why Do Firms Hold Cash? Evidence from EMU Countries," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 10(2), pages 295-319, June.
    32. Kim, Chang-Soo & Mauer, David C. & Sherman, Ann E., 1998. "The Determinants of Corporate Liquidity: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(3), pages 335-359, September.
    33. Lins, Karl V. & Servaes, Henri & Tufano, Peter, 2010. "What drives corporate liquidity? An international survey of cash holdings and lines of credit," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 160-176, October.
    34. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alves, Paulo, 2018. "Cash holdings around the world: Financial crisis, culture and shareholder rights," MPRA Paper 89861, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2018.
    2. Abdul Rashid & Maryam Ashfaq, 2017. "Financial Constraints And Corporate Cash Holdings: An Empirical Analysis Using Firm Level Data," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(02), pages 1-26, June.
    3. Paulo, Alves, 2018. "Abnormal retained earnings around the world," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 63-74.
    4. Amess, Kevin & Banerji, Sanjay & Lampousis, Athanasios, 2015. "Corporate cash holdings: Causes and consequences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 421-433.
    5. Efstathios Magerakis & Konstantinos Gkillas & Athanasios Tsagkanos & Costas Siriopoulos, 2020. "Firm Size Does Matter: New Evidence on the Determinants of Cash Holdings," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-35, July.
    6. Alves, Paulo & Morais, Francisco, 2018. "Cash holdings are increasing and financial crisis strenghts it," MPRA Paper 83799, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Maurizio Rocca & Raffaele Staglianò & Tiziana Rocca & Alfio Cariola & Ekaterina Skatova, 2019. "Cash holdings and SME performance in Europe: the role of firm-specific and macroeconomic moderators," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1051-1078, December.
    8. Bigelli, Marco & Sánchez-Vidal, Javier, 2012. "Cash holdings in private firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-35.
    9. Davide Dottori & Giacinto Micucci, 2018. "Corporate liquidity in Italy and its increase in the long recession," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(3), pages 981-1014, December.
    10. Hsuan-Chu Lin & She-Chih Chiu, 2017. "Tradeoff on corporate cash holdings: a theoretical and empirical analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 727-763, October.
    11. Jan Felix Weidemann, 2018. "A state-of-the-art review of corporate cash holding research," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 88(6), pages 765-797, August.
    12. Stavros E. Arvanitis & Theodoros V. Stamatopoulos & Dimitris Terzakis, 2018. "Is There a Non-linear Relationship of Market Value with Cash and Ownership?," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 68(1), pages 3-25, January-M.
    13. Al-Hadi, Ahmed & Eulaiwi, Baban & Al-Yahyaee, Khamis Hamed & Duong, Lien & Taylor, Grantley, 2020. "Investment committees and corporate cash holdings," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    14. Efstathios Magerakis & Ahsan Habib, 2022. "Environmental uncertainty and corporate cash holdings: The moderating role of CEO ability," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 402-432, September.
    15. Ahrends, Meike & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Nomikos, Nikos K., 2018. "Corporate cash holdings in the shipping industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 107-124.
    16. Efstathios Magerakis & Konstantinos Gkillas & Christos Floros & George Peppas, 2022. "Corporate R&D intensity and high cash holdings: post-crisis analysis," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3767-3808, September.
    17. Qazi Awais Amin & Tom Williamson, 2021. "Firms cash management, adjustment cost and its impact on firms’ speed of adjustment: a cross country analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 53-89, January.
    18. Thakur, Bhanu Pratap Singh & Kannadhasan, M., 2019. "Corruption and cash holdings: Evidence from emerging market economies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-17.
    19. Liu, Qigui & Luo, Tianpei & Tian, Gary Gang, 2015. "Family control and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 220-245.
    20. Phung Anh Thu & Nguyen Vinh Khuong, 2018. "Factors Effect on Corporate Cash Holdings of the Energy Enterprises Listed on Vietnam s Stock Market," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 8(5), pages 29-34.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial crisis; Capital market development; Domestic credit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joecas:v:26:y:2022:i:c:s1703494922000330. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-journal-of-economic-asymmetries/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.