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Corporate Demand for Liquidity

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Author Info
Heitor Almeida
Murillo Campello
Michael S. Weisbach

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Abstract

This paper proposes a theory of corporate liquidity demand and provides new evidence on corporate cash policies. Firms have access to valuable investment opportunities, but potentially cannot fund them with the use of external finance. Firms that are financially unconstrained can undertake all positive NPV projects regardless of their cash position, so their cash positions are irrelevant. In contrast, firms facing financial constraints have an optimal cash position determined by the value of today's investments relative to the expected value of future investments. The model predicts that constrained firms will save a positive fraction of incremental cash flows, while unconstrained firms will not. We also consider the impact of Jensen (1986) style overinvestment on the model's equilibrium, and derive conditions under which overinvestment affects corporate cash policies. We test the model's implications on a large sample of publicly-traded manufacturing firms over the 1981-2000 period, and find that firms classified as financially constrained save a positive fraction of their cash flows, while firms classified as unconstrained do not. Moreover, constrained firms save a higher fraction of cash inflows during recessions. These results are robust to the use of alternative proxies for financial constraints, and to several changes in the empirical specification. We also find weak evidence consistent with our agency-based model of corporate liquidity.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9253.

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Date of creation: Oct 2002
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9253

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Investment Policy
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Anderson, Ronald W & Carverhill, Andrew, 2005. "A Model of Corporate Liquidity," CEPR Discussion Papers 4994, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Halil Ibrahim Aydin & Cafer Kaplan & Mehtap Kesriyeli & Erdal Ozmen & Cihan Yalcin & Serkan Yigit, 2006. "Corporate Sector Financial Structure in Turkey : A Descriptive Analysis," Working Papers 0607, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. [Downloadable!]
  3. Arun Khanna, 2004. "Corporate Investments, Liquidity and Bank Financing: Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Market," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2004-649, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School. [Downloadable!]
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