We examine the strategic role of cash in a two-stage competition model featuring a first-mover advantage in product markets and time delays in outside financing. Due to the joint effect of the first-mover advantage, time to finance, market profitability, participation cost, and the arrival rate...

This paper examines the extent to which Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) affect corporate cash holding policies. We construct an index (CFO index) that enables us to distinguish between "strong'' and "weak'' CFOs based on their ability to influence firm outcomes. We find that firms with strong...

This paper provides new evidence on the link between financial constraints and corporate cash policy. Using time-series data for US public and private manufacturing firms, we find negative correlation between cash holdings and cost-of-carry for large firms. We find no evidence of such a relation...

Using a database of more than 180,000 private companies from 2000 to 2009, we find that the benefits of holding more cash vary substantially with a firm's size and the conditions it faces. Cash holdings matter most for small firms: when there are negative shocks to industry or macroeconomic...

This paper examines the relationship between cash holdings and business cycles between 1976 and 2012, with a primary emphasis on how cash holdings vary during the business cycle and specifically during recessions. Using several different quarterly data sets, findings confirm that cash holdings...

We assess the extent to which remotely-located firms are likely to discretionarily accumulate cash rather than distribute it to shareholders. We consider that these firms are less subject to shareholder scrutiny and, thus, will have high agency conflicts as the distance will facilitate the...

This study investigates how controlling shareholders fraudulently extracted firm value via cash tunnelling from Chinese companies from 1998 to 2011. The evidence suggests that expropriating owners choose a balance sheet account that is not directly related to the firm's operating business in...

This paper addresses the following unresolved questions: Why do some firms issue equity instead of debt? Why did most firms retain their cash holdings instead of distributing them as dividends in recent times? How do firms change their financing policies during a period of severe financial...

This paper distinguishes political uncertainty from policy uncertainty shocks and uncovers new empirical facts about how each impacts the aggregate cash holdings of US firms. Our baseline structural vector autoregression model shows that an exogenous one standard deviation shock to political and...

We examine whether firms hold more cash in the face of tax uncertainty. Because of gray areas in the tax law and aggressive tax avoidance, the total amount of tax that a firm will pay is uncertain at the time it files its returns. The tax authorities can challenge and disallow the firm's tax...