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Workplace Automation and Corporate Liquidity Policy

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Abstract

Using an occupational probability of computerization, we measure a firm’s ability to replace labor with automated capital. Our evidence suggests that the potential to automate a workforce enhances operating flexibility, allowing firms to hold less precautionary cash. To provide evidence for this mechanism, we exploit the 2011–2012 Thailand hard drive crisis as an exogenous shock to the cost of automation. In addition, the negative relation between prospective automation and cash holdings is greater for firms with a lower expected cost of worker displacement and greater labor-induced operating leverage.

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  • Jessie Jiaxu Wang, 2023. "Workplace Automation and Corporate Liquidity Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-023, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2023-23
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2023.023
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Automation; Operating flexibility; Corporate liquidity policy; Substitutability of labor with automated capital; Labor-induced operating leverage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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