Corporate Decision-Making in the Presence of Political Uncertainty: The Case of Corporate Cash Holdings

Abstract

Using a quarterly panel of U.S. corporations over the period 1985 – 2014 we show that corporate managers respond to political uncertainty and economic policy uncertainty shocks in different ways. We proxy for political uncertainty using the Partisan Conflict Index and employ a prevalent empirical macroeconomic methodology to construct structural shocks that are orthogonal to shocks captured by the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. Following a political uncertainty shock, corporations increase cash but do not adjust investment. Alternatively, following an economic policy uncertainty shock, firms appear to draw on cash and reduce capital spending to increase R&D spending.

Keywords: Cash Holdings, Economic Policy Uncertainty, SVAR, U.S. Partisan Conflict