IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/47410.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What are the causes of the growing trend of excess savings of the corporate sector in developed countries? An empirical analysis of three hypotheses

Author

Listed:
  • Pérez Artica, Rodrigo
  • Brufman, Leandro
  • Martinez, Lisana

Abstract

We analyze a sample of manufacturing firms from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and UK during the period 1997-2011, and find an increasing trend of excess savings (defined as the difference between gross saving and capital formation), and a gradual decline of gross capital formation. This trend is accompanied by a steady deleveraging process and a decrease in the share of operating assets in total assets. This process is more acute among the more credit constrained, the more volatile, and the less dynamic firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Pérez Artica, Rodrigo & Brufman, Leandro & Martinez, Lisana, 2013. "What are the causes of the growing trend of excess savings of the corporate sector in developed countries? An empirical analysis of three hypotheses," MPRA Paper 47410, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:47410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/47410/1/MPRA_paper_47410.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2001. "Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(1), pages 67-79, March.
    2. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    3. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    4. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2007. "The Demand for Treasury Debt," NBER Working Papers 12881, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    6. Steven X. Wei & Chu Zhang, 2006. "Why Did Individual Stocks Become More Volatile?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(1), pages 259-292, January.
    7. Mr. Zoltan Pozsar, 2011. "Institutional Cash Pools and the Triffin Dilemma of the U.S. Banking System," IMF Working Papers 2011/190, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Luci Ellis & Kathryn Smith, 2010. "The Global Upward Trend in the Profit Share," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 56(3), pages 231-256.
    9. Ulf von Kalckreuth, 2003. "Exploring the role of uncertainty for corporate investment decisions in Germany," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 139(II), pages 173-206, June.
    10. Denis, David J. & Osobov, Igor, 2008. "Why do firms pay dividends? International evidence on the determinants of dividend policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 62-82, July.
    11. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    12. Baum, Christopher F. & Caglayan, Mustafa & Ozkan, Neslihan & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2006. "The impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on non-financial firms' demand for liquidity," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 289-304.
    13. Custódio, Cláudia & Ferreira, Miguel A. & Laureano, Luís, 2013. "Why are US firms using more short-term debt?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 182-212.
    14. Eugene F. Fama, 2002. "Testing Trade-Off and Pecking Order Predictions About Dividends and Debt," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    15. Brown, Gregory & Kapadia, Nishad, 2007. "Firm-specific risk and equity market development," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 358-388, May.
    16. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Michael S. Weisbach, 2004. "The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1777-1804, August.
    17. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    18. DeAngelo, Harry & DeAngelo, Linda & Skinner, Douglas J., 2004. "Are dividends disappearing? Dividend concentration and the consolidation of earnings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 425-456, June.
    19. John R. Graham, 2000. "How Big Are the Tax Benefits of Debt?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1901-1941, October.
    20. Kahle, Kathleen M. & Stulz, René M., 2013. "Access to capital, investment, and the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 280-299.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shin-ichi Fukuda, 2018. "Companies’ Financial Surpluses and Cash/Deposit Holdings," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 14(3), pages 369-396, July.
    2. Tatiana Cesaroni & Riccardo De Bonis & Luigi Infante, 2017. "On the determinants of firms’ financial surpluses and deficits," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Statistical implications of the new financial landscape, volume 43, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. Jun-ichi Nakamura, 2018. "Corporate Financial Surpluses and Allocation of Internal Cash Flow in Japan: Microdata Analysis by Enterprise Size Based on Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 14(3), pages 397-432, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brufman, Leandro & Martinez, Lisana & Artica, Rodrigo Perez, 2013. "What are the causes of the growing trend of excess savings of the corporate sector in developed countries ? an empirical analysis of three hypotheses," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6571, The World Bank.
    2. Rodrigo Pérez Artica & Leandro Brufman & Lisana Belén Martinez, 2017. "Delving into the Secular Stagnation Hypothesis: A Firm-Level Analysis of the Private Sector’s Excess Savings in Advanced Economies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 59(1), pages 77-106, March.
    3. Bessler, Wolfgang & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Haller, Rebekka & Meier, Iwan, 2013. "The international zero-leverage phenomenon," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 196-221.
    4. Daniel Tut, 2022. "Policy uncertainty and cash dynamics," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 422-444, June.
    5. Ivan E. Brick & Rose C. Liao, 2017. "The joint determinants of cash holdings and debt maturity: the case for financial constraints," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 597-641, April.
    6. Abdul Rashid & Maryam Ashfaq, 2017. "Financial Constraints And Corporate Cash Holdings: An Empirical Analysis Using Firm Level Data," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(02), pages 1-26, June.
    7. Fliers, Philip T., 2019. "What is the relation between financial flexibility and dividend smoothing?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 98-111.
    8. Denis, David J., 2011. "Financial flexibility and corporate liquidity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 667-674, June.
    9. Morais, Flávio & Serrasqueiro, Zélia & Ramalho, Joaquim J.S., 2020. "The zero-leverage phenomenon: A bivariate probit with partial observability approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    10. D'Mello, Ranjan & Gruskin, Mark & Kulchania, Manoj, 2018. "Shareholders valuation of long-term debt and decline in firms' leverage ratio," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 352-374.
    11. Brisker, Eric R. & Çolak, Gönül & Peterson, David R., 2013. "Changes in cash holdings around the S&P 500 additions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1787-1807.
    12. Greta Falavigna & Roberto Ippoliti, 2021. "Financial Constraints and the Sustainability of Dividend Payout Policy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Armenter, Roc & Hnatkovska, Viktoria, 2017. "Taxes and capital structure: Understanding firms’ savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 13-33.
    14. Fu, Fangjian & Huang, Sheng & Wang, Rong, 2022. "Why Do U.S. Firms Invest Less over Time?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 15-42.
    15. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Igor Cunha & Michael S. Weisbach, 2014. "Corporate Liquidity Management: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 135-162, December.
    16. Yang, Bao & Chou, Hsin-I. & Zhao, Jing, 2020. "Innovation or dividend payout: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 180-203.
    17. Sai Ding & Minjoo Kim & Xiao Zhang, 2021. "New Insight on Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivity," Working Papers 2021_16, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    18. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Kevin Rageth & René M Stulz, 2021. "How Valuable Is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis [The risk of being a fallen angel and the corporate dash for cash in the midst of COVID]," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5474-5521.
    19. Chang, Yanhao & Benson, Karen & Faff, Robert, 2017. "Are excess cash holdings more valuable to firms in times of crisis? Financial constraints and governance matters," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 157-173.
    20. Yang, Junhong & Guariglia, Alessandra & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2019. "To what extent does corporate liquidity affect M&A decisions, method of payment and performance? Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 128-152.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    formation; liquidity demand; financial leverage; financial constraints;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:47410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.