Who Holds Cash? And Why?

Cash holdings of nonfinancial firms range widely, and are related to firm size, industry and access to the public bond market. Cash holdings are positively correlated with agency proxies, suggesting that firms that cannot borrow easily due to agency problems hold greater cash stocks--perhaps as a cushion to prevent shortfalls in cash flow from impinging on investment.However, this correlation holds only for the very highest cash holders, especially small firms. The group of afflicted firms appears to be less than one-quarter of COMPUSTAT firms. Cash holdings of a large majority of firms appear to be unrelated to agency problems