Cash holdings of U.S. firms have increased dramatically since 1980. The purpose of this paper is to build a simple formal model of cash holdings that can explain this and other empirical regularities. Our model is based on the well-known “lemons” problem associated with equity issuance. We...

Volume 1A covers corporate finance: how businesses allocate capital - the capital budgeting decision - and how they obtain capital - the financing decision. Though managers play no independent role in the work of Miller and Modigliani, major contributions in finance since then have shown that...

In the 11 articles in this first of two parts, top scholars summarize and analyze recent scholarship in corporate finance. Covering subjects from corporate taxes to behavioral corporate finance and econometric issues, their articles reveal how specializations resonate with each other and...

This paper shows that geographical elements can form an essential component of contract design in addition to more traditional ingredients such as information problems, moral hazard and legal institutions. We analyze cash flow contingencies included in 1,804 contracts between U.S. venture...