Cash Holdings and the Financialisation of Latin American Nonfinancial Corporations

Abstract

The growth in cash holdings by non-financial corporations in emerging economies in general and Latin American in particular has received less attention compared to their peers from advanced economies. Taking into account that cash holdings contain not only cash but also short-term, interest-bearing assets, we test whether financial profitability measured by the weight of financial income over total revenues was one motive behind the increase in this type of financial asset as it is claimed in analyses of the financialisation of the firm. We use a panel of nonfinancial firms from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru to test this hypothesis and find supporting evidence for the Brazilian case only.

Keywords: cash holdings, financialisation of the firm, Latin America

JEL Classification: D22, G30, G32, O16