IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/revfec/v28y2016i1p21-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial constraints, board governance standards, and corporate cash holdings

Author

Listed:
  • Choonsik Lee
  • Heungju Park

Abstract

This study examines whether financial constraints and board governance play substitution roles in lowering agency concerns in corporate cash holdings. Using four firm‐specific characteristics of financial constraints and 28 forward‐looking board governance standards, we find that board governance mitigates agency concerns in cash holdings more significantly for financially less‐constrained firms. Consistently, financially less‐constrained firms increase the level of board governance and adopt more board governance standards. A natural experiment with the 2007 financial crisis provides robustness to our findings. Our evidence suggests that financial constraints interrelate with the effectiveness of board governance on corporate cash holdings.

Suggested Citation

  • Choonsik Lee & Heungju Park, 2016. "Financial constraints, board governance standards, and corporate cash holdings," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(1), pages 21-34, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:revfec:v:28:y:2016:i:1:p:21-34
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rfe.2015.10.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rfe.2015.10.001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rfe.2015.10.001?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luo, Mi (Meg), 2011. "A bright side of financial constraints in cash management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1430-1444.
    2. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P., 1995. "Evidence on the role of cash flow for investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 541-572, December.
    3. Merton H. Miller & Daniel Orr, 1966. "A Model of the Demand for Money by Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 80(3), pages 413-435.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Stein, Jeremy C, 1997. "Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 111-133, March.
    7. Lawrence Brown & Marcus Caylor, 2009. "Corporate governance and firm operating performance," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 129-144, February.
    8. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cohen, Alma, 2005. "The costs of entrenched boards," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 409-433, November.
    9. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 110-110.
    10. Berry, Tammy K. & Paige Fields, L. & Wilkins, Michael S., 2006. "The interaction among multiple governance mechanisms in young newly public firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 449-466, June.
    11. 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.
    12. Leigh A. Riddick & Toni M. Whited, 2009. "The Corporate Propensity to Save," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1729-1766, August.
    13. Acharya, Viral V. & Almeida, Heitor & Campello, Murillo, 2007. "Is cash negative debt? A hedging perspective on corporate financial policies," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 515-554, October.
    14. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    15. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Asset Tangibility, and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1429-1460, 2007 12.
    16. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    17. Linck, James S. & Netter, Jeffry M. & Yang, Tina, 2008. "The determinants of board structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 308-328, February.
    18. William J. Baumol, 1952. "The Transactions Demand for Cash: An Inventory Theoretic Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 66(4), pages 545-556.
    19. Jarrad Harford & Sattar A. Mansi & William F. Maxwell, 2012. "Corporate Governance and Firm Cash Holdings in the U.S," Springer Books, in: Sabri Boubaker & Bang Dang Nguyen & Duc Khuong Nguyen (ed.), Corporate Governance, edition 127, pages 107-138, Springer.
    20. Stulz, ReneM., 1990. "Managerial discretion and optimal financing policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 3-27, July.
    21. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1777-1804 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    23. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    24. David J. Denis & Valeriy Sibilkov, 2010. "Financial Constraints, Investment, and the Value of Cash Holdings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 247-269, January.
    25. Bipin Ajinkya & Sanjeev Bhojraj & Partha Sengupta, 2005. "The Association between Outside Directors, Institutional Investors and the Properties of Management Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 343-376, June.
    26. Leuz, Christian & Nanda, Dhananjay & Wysocki, Peter D., 2003. "Earnings management and investor protection: an international comparison," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 505-527, September.
    27. Calomiris, Charles W. & Himmelberg, Charles P. & Wachtel, Paul, 1995. "Commercial paper, corporate finance, and the business cycle: a microeconomic perspective," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 203-250, June.
    28. Chung, Kee H. & Elder, John & Kim, Jang-Chul, 2010. "Corporate Governance and Liquidity," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 265-291, April.
    29. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    30. 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.
    31. 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.
    32. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    33. Core, John E. & Holthausen, Robert W. & Larcker, David F., 1999. "Corporate governance, chief executive officer compensation, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 371-406, March.
    34. Brown, Lawrence D. & Caylor, Marcus L., 2006. "Corporate governance and firm valuation," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 409-434.
    35. Ashbaugh-Skaife, Hollis & Collins, Daniel W. & LaFond, Ryan, 2006. "The effects of corporate governance on firms' credit ratings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 203-243, October.
    36. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 1988. "The Determinants of Board Composition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(4), pages 589-606, Winter.
    37. Campello, Murillo & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2010. "The real effects of financial constraints: Evidence from a financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 470-487, September.
    38. Duchin, Ran & Ozbas, Oguzhan & Sensoy, Berk A., 2010. "Costly external finance, corporate investment, and the subprime mortgage credit crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 418-435, September.
    39. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    40. Lucian Bebchuk & Alma Cohen & Allen Ferrell, 2009. "What Matters in Corporate Governance?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 783-827, February.
    41. Irene Karamanou & Nikos Vafeas, 2005. "The Association between Corporate Boards, Audit Committees, and Management Earnings Forecasts: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 453-486, June.
    42. Michael Faulkender & Rong Wang, 2006. "Corporate Financial Policy and the Value of Cash," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1957-1990, August.
    43. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 351-351.
    44. Berger, Philip G. & Ofek, Eli & Swary, Itzhak, 1996. "Investor valuation of the abandonment option," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 257-287, October.
    45. Han, Seungjin & Qiu, Jiaping, 2007. "Corporate precautionary cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 43-57, March.
    46. Sanjeev Bhojraj & Partha Sengupta, 2003. "Effect of Corporate Governance on Bond Ratings and Yields: The Role of Institutional Investors and Outside Directors," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(3), pages 455-476, July.
    47. Hirshleifer, David & Suh, Yoon, 1992. "Risk, managerial effort, and project choice," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 308-345, September.
    48. Chung, Kee H. & Jo, Hoje, 1996. "The Impact of Security Analysts' Monitoring and Marketing Functions on the Market Value of Firms," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 493-512, December.
    49. Aiyesha Dey, 2008. "Corporate Governance and Agency Conflicts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(5), pages 1143-1181, December.
    50. Karpoff, Jonathan M. & Malatesta, Paul H. & Walkling, Ralph A., 1996. "Corporate governance and shareholder initiatives: Empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 365-395, November.
    51. Siti Nuryanah & Sardar M. N. Islam, 2015. "Corporate Governance and Financial Management," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-43561-3, March.
    52. Booth, James R. & Cornett, Marcia Millon & Tehranian, Hassan, 2002. "Boards of directors, ownership, and regulation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(10), pages 1973-1996, October.
    53. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lingyun Xiong & Lijuan Xiao & Min Bai & Yafeng Qin & Lijuan Yang, 2023. "The religion effect on corporate cash holding in China: Buddhism and Taoism," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 4420-4457, October.
    2. Mertzanis, Charilaos & Hamill, Philip A. & Pavlopoulos, Athanasios & Houcine, Asma, 2024. "Sustainable investment conditions and corporate cash holdings in the MENA region: Market preparedness and Shari'ah-compliant funds," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PB), pages 1043-1063.
    3. Kexian Zhang & Xiaoying Liu & Min Hong, 2021. "Discretionary Effort on Green Technology Innovation: How Chinese Enterprises Act when Facing Financing Constraints," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Hu, Jinshuai & Jiang, Haiyan & Wu, Yibing, 2023. "How does privatization affect cash dividends? Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    5. Yao, Youfu & Hong, Yun, 2023. "Can comment letters impact excess cash holdings? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 900-922.
    6. Abid Hussain & Beata Gavurova & Masood Ahmed & Muhammad Asif Khan & József Popp, 2023. "What Matters for Corporate Cash Holdings Board Governance, Financial Constraints, or Interactions?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, November.

    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. Lee, Choonsik & Park, Heungju, 2016. "Financial constraints, board governance standards, and corporate cash holdings," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 21-34.
    2. Gao, Ning & Mohamed, Abdulkadir, 2018. "Cash-rich acquirers do not always make bad acquisitions: New evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 243-264.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Cristina Martínez-Sola & Pedro J. García-Teruel & Pedro Martínez-Solano, 2018. "Cash holdings in SMEs: speed of adjustment, growth and financing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 823-842, December.
    6. Sun, Wenyi & Yin, Chao & Zeng, Yeqin, 2023. "Precautionary motive or private benefit motive for holding cash: Evidence from CEO ownership," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. Brisker, Eric R. & Çolak, Gönül & Peterson, David R., 2013. "Changes in cash holdings around the S&P 500 additions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1787-1807.
    8. Tut, Daniel, 2021. "Financial Crisis, Corporate Governance and the Value of Cash Holdings," MPRA Paper 108593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Tut, Daniel, 2024. "External financing, corporate governance and the value of cash holdings," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 156-179.
    10. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Igor Cunha & Michael S. Weisbach, 2014. "Corporate Liquidity Management: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 135-162, December.
    11. Arnold, Marc, 2014. "Managerial cash use, default, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 305-325.
    12. Paulo, Alves, 2018. "Abnormal retained earnings around the world," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 63-74.
    13. 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.
    14. Podolski, Edward J. & Truong, Cameron & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2016. "Cash holdings and bond returns around takeovers," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-11.
    15. Schauer, Catharina & Elsas, Ralf & Breitkopf, Nikolas, 2019. "A new measure of financial constraints applicable to private and public firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 270-295.
    16. Huang, Winifred & Mazouz, Khelifa, 2018. "Excess cash, trading continuity, and liquidity risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 275-291.
    17. Théo Nicolas, 2022. "Short-term financial constraints and SMEs’ investment decision: evidence from the working capital channel," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1885-1914, April.
    18. Wang, Yolanda Yulong, 2023. "Corporate diversification, investment efficiency and the business cycle11This work is supported by Shenzhen Humanities & Social Sciences Key Research Bases," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    19. Chen, Hsuan-Chi & Chou, Robin K. & Lu, Chien-Lin, 2018. "Saving for a rainy day: Evidence from the 2000 dot-com crash and the 2008 credit crisis," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 680-699.
    20. Cui, Di & Ding, Mingfa & Han, Yikai & Suardi, Sandy, 2022. "Foreign shareholders, relative foreign policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    More about this item

    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:wly:revfec:v:28:y:2016:i:1:p:21-34. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1873-5924 .

    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.