Corporate Cash Holding, Agency Problems and Economic Policy Uncertainty
59 Pages Posted: 30 Jan 2020 Last revised: 29 Jul 2021
Date Written: February 7, 2015
Abstract
Consistent with the agency view of cash holdings, we document a strong negative relationship between economic policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings for non-U.S. firms from 19 countries. Our results are robust to different measures of cash holdings and model specifications and survive after addressing endogeneity. We provide evidence that the decrease in cash holdings is moderated by shareholders’ ability to force managers to disgorge cash that fits consistently within the agency framework. Overall, results suggest that lowering cash holdings help alleviate agency problems in the presence of policy uncertainty and underscore the significance of country attributes in corporate finance.
Keywords: Policy uncertainty, Corporate Cash holding, Agency problems
JEL Classification: G15, G32, G35, G38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation