We document a broad-based trend in rising cash holdings of firms across major industrialized countries over the last two decades, a trend that is most pronounced for firms engaged strongly in R and D activities. Our contributions to the literature are twofold. First, we develop a simple model...

Monetary policy space remains constrained by the lower bound in many countries, limiting the policy options available to address future deflationary shocks. The existence of cash prevents central banks from cutting interest rates much below zero. In this paper, we consider the practical...