IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ptl/wpaper/27.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firm Level Cash Flow Sensitivity Of Cash And Corporate Governance

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Díaz

    (Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales)

  • Gabriel Ramírez

    (Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University)

Abstract

We construct a new measure of firm-level “cash flow sensitivity of cash” using a correlated random effects estimation model. This measure is able to incorporate unobservable, time-invariant firm characteristics in the analysis of firm’s cash flows, in addition to the traditional observable, firm specific characteristics (e.g. governance, growth opportunities, and the degree of financial constraints). Thus, the use of this measure can significantly improve the assessments of the impact of firm individual characteristics and cash stock piling activities on firm value and firm’s investment policies. We empirically implement this measure and methodology using proxies for the level of firm’s financial constraints, agency conflicts, and governance, and the tangibility of assets. We find that stronger governance reduce the propensity of firms to stockpile cash. Furthermore, and consistent with this result, stronger governance in financially constrained firms induce lower level of investments and higher payouts to stock holders. This situation is not observed in unconstrained firms and may have important effects on firm values. Our new proposed methodology to compute cash flow sensitivity may play a central role in future empirical research expanding upon this new dimension of governance, as reflected in the power struggle between management and shareholders, particularly in relation to financing constraints and cash accumulation policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Díaz & Gabriel Ramírez, 2011. "Firm Level Cash Flow Sensitivity Of Cash And Corporate Governance," Working Papers 27, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.
    • Handle: RePEc:ptl:wpaper:27
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.udp.cl/descargas/facultades_carreras/economia/pdf/documentos_investigacion/wp27_Sensitivity_diaz.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Stewart C. Myers & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1998. "The Paradox of Liquidity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 733-771.
    5. Sean Cleary, 1999. "The Relationship between Firm Investment and Financial Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 673-692, April.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1777-1804 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Chamberlain, Gary, 1982. "Multivariate regression models for panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 5-46, January.
    14. Hayong Yun, 2009. "The Choice of Corporate Liquidity and Corporate Governance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1447-1475, April.
    15. Lee Pinkowitz & René Stulz & Rohan Williamson, 2006. "Does the Contribution of Corporate Cash Holdings and Dividends to Firm Value Depend on Governance? A Cross‐country Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2725-2751, December.
    16. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. Arnold, Marc, 2014. "Managerial cash use, default, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 305-325.
    3. Smith, Deborah Drummond & Gleason, Kimberly C. & Kannan, Yezen H., 2021. "Auditor liability and excess cash holdings: Evidence from audit fees of foreign incorporated firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Dudley, Evan & Zhang, Ning, 2016. "Trust and corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 363-387.
    5. Gary E. Powell & H. Kent Baker, 2010. "Management Views on Corporate Cash Holdings," Discussion Paper Series 2010-01, McColl School of Business, Queens University of Charlotte.
    6. Luo, Mi (Meg), 2011. "A bright side of financial constraints in cash management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1430-1444.
    7. Pascal Nguyen & Nahid Rahman, 2020. "Institutional ownership, cross‐shareholdings and corporate cash reserves in Japan," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(S1), pages 1175-1207, April.
    8. Belkhir, Mohamed & Boubaker, Sabri & Derouiche, Imen, 2014. "Control–ownership wedge, board of directors, and the value of excess cash," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 110-122.
    9. 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.
    10. Bigelli, Marco & Sánchez-Vidal, Javier, 2012. "Cash holdings in private firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-35.
    11. Kusnadi, Yuanto, 2011. "Do corporate governance mechanisms matter for cash holdings and firm value?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 554-570, November.
    12. 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.
    13. Audrey Wenhsin Hsu & Sophia Hsintsai Liu, 2018. "Parent-subsidiary investment layers and the value of corporate cash holdings," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 651-681, October.
    14. Huang, Pinghsun & Guo, Jun & Ma, Tongshu & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Does the value of cash holdings deteriorate or improve with material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 30-45.
    15. Aviner Augusto Silva Manoel & Marcelo Botelho da Costa Moraes & Juliano Augusto Orsi de Araujo, 2024. "The effects of financial constraints on the market value of cash in a mandatory dividend context," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 1012-1041, January.
    16. Marc B.J. Schauten & Dick van Dijk & Jan†Paul van der Waal, 2013. "Corporate Governance and the Value of Excess Cash Holdings of Large European Firms," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(5), pages 991-1016, November.
    17. 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).
    18. 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.
    19. Adão, Bernardino & Silva, André C., 2020. "The effect of firm cash holdings on monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    20. Bastian von Beschwitz, 2016. "Cash Windfalls and Acquisitions," International Finance Discussion Papers 1159, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ptl:wpaper:27. 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: Enrique Calfucura (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feudpcl.html .

    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.