We examine cash holdings and leverage levels of German listed (non-financial and non-utility) firms. We document a secular increase in cash ratios over the last twenty years (1992–2011), reducing the net debt book leverage ratio for the average sample firm close to zero. Using pre-diction...

Prior studies show that agency conflicts are important in explaining corporate financial policies and that the board of directors is central to corporate governance. In this study, we examine the role of this governing body in the accumulation of cash reserves. Using a sample of 597 French...

This paper empirically analyzes the relationship between firms' competitive position and cash holdings. Firms with a low competitive position have a lower expected cash ow. Therefore, such firms set aside cash from cash flows to avoid default. We estimate a linear cash demand function using two...

We provide one of the first large sample comparisons of cash policies in public and private U.S. firms. We first show that on average private firms hold less than half as much cash as public firms do. The higher cash holdings of public firms are partially caused by the fact that public firms add...

We examine the determinants of cash holdings in private and public companies. Using a sample of more than 280,000 U.K. private firms and 970,000 firm-year observations from the 1994-2010 period we show that cash holdings in private firms support both the trade-off theory and the financing...

We provide one of the first large sample comparisons of cash policies in public and private U.S. firms. We first show that despite higher financing frictions, private firms hold, on average, about half as much cash as public firms do. By examining the drivers of cash policies for each group, we...

This article reveals that listing status affects corporate cash holdings during a financial crisis. We compare the cash-holding behavior between public and private firms during Japan's banking crisis, which is considered an exogenous shock for a firm's financial decision. Because private firms...

We examine how firms change their cash policies in response to the downfall of corrupt politicians in China. We find that firms connected to their local government increase cash holdings when high-profile politician downfalls occur in the government. Consistent with the precautionary saving...

We provide one of the first large sample study to examine how firm-level characteristics and national-level institutions affect cash balances in privately held and publicly traded firms and investigate whether the determinants of cash holdings for both types of firms are similar. Using panel...