We find that to mitigate refinancing risk caused by shorter maturity debt, firms increase their cash holdings and save more cash from their cash flows. We also document that the maturity of U.S. firms' long-term debt has markedly shortened over the 1980-2008 period and that this shortening...

Results from about 17,000 Italian private companies and 152,000 firm-year observations in the 1996-2005 period show that cash holdings in private firms support both the trade-off model and the financing hierarchy theory. In fact, more cash holdings are a feature of riskier companies and firms...

This paper uses a unique dataset to study how firms managed liquidity during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Our analysis provides new insights on interactions between internal liquidity, external funds, and real corporate decisions, such as investment and employment. We first describe how...

Do firms with liquid stocks hold more cash? If so, why? We show that liquidity has a positive effect on the level and value of cash holdings. Using a regression discontinuity design based on the Russell 1000/2000 index reconstitution, we also show that there is a causal link between liquidity...

The Lehman Brothers event in 2008 created a large uncertainty shock that triggered an economic slowdown lasting a decade. The macroeconomic effects are well documented, but the effect on business decisions much less so. In this paper, we explore corporate data to investigate how economic...

We evaluate the link between CEO industry tournament incentives (ITI) and the product market benefits of corporate liquidity. We find that ITI increase the level and marginal value of cash holdings. Furthermore, ITI strengthen the relation between excess cash and market share gains especially...

We study how firms engaged in both R&D and fixed investment manage liquidity and adjust real investment during the recent financial crisis. Among firms with positive R&D expenditures, cuts to fixed investment in the crisis are typically far more severe than cuts to R&D. These firms allocate cash...

This paper investigates the extent to which corporate cash holdings protect firms from the adverse consequences of shocks to their borrowing cost. It develops a dynamic model of corporate investment and financing decisions subject to real and financial frictions. The calibrated model matches the...

Assuming benevolent managers, the debt-overhang problem suggests that distressed firms generally refrain from issuing equity. In contrast, agency theory predicts that distressed firm managers have strong self-interests to finance even deteriorating projects through equity issuance. This paper...

This paper attempts to explain the link between corporate investments in different phases of the economic cycle and company financial distress. The data were derived from the Estonian Centre of Registers and Information Systems and contained the population of Estonian businesses from four...