IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v33y2020i9p4102-4138..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Do Firms Hold Cash? Evidence from Demographic Demand Shifts

Author

Listed:
  • Igor Cunha
  • Joshua Pollet
  • David Denis

Abstract

We exploit variation in demand induced by demographics to provide causal evidence of the precautionary motive of cash holdings. We show that firms significantly increase their cash levels in response to exogenous increases in investment opportunities. We also provide novel evidence of the dynamics of accumulation and use of cash. Financially constrained firms build their cash reserves using internal sources. Consequently, they start saving earlier and keep high cash levels longer. Unconstrained firms rely on external financing to both invest and build cash reserves, requiring them to save less and allowing them to incur lower costs of carry.Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Suggested Citation

  • Igor Cunha & Joshua Pollet & David Denis, 2020. "Why Do Firms Hold Cash? Evidence from Demographic Demand Shifts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(9), pages 4102-4138.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:33:y:2020:i:9:p:4102-4138.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhz124
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Nurul Houqe & Reza M. Monem & Tony van Zijl, 2023. "Business strategy, cash holdings, and dividend payouts," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(4), pages 3999-4035, December.
    2. Favara, Giovanni & Gao, Janet & Giannetti, Mariassunta, 2021. "Uncertainty, access to debt, and firm precautionary behavior," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 436-453.
    3. Andreas Joseph & Christiane Kneer & Neeltje van Horen, 2021. "All You Need Is Cash: Corporate Cash Holdings and Investment after the Global Financial Crisis," CESifo Working Paper Series 9053, CESifo.
    4. Gonenc, Halit & Polten, Marc-Oliver & Westerman, Wim, 2022. "U.S., Anglo-Saxon European, and non-Anglo-Saxon European cash holdings around the financial crisis," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    5. Aviner Augusto Silva Manoel & Marcelo Botelho da Costa Moraes & Juliano Augusto Orsi de Araujo, 2024. "The effects of financial constraints on the market value of cash in a mandatory dividend context," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 1012-1041, January.
    6. Sven Klingler & Olav Syrstad, 2021. "Disclosing the Undisclosed: Commercial Paper As Hidden Liquidity Suffers," Working Paper 2021/16, Norges Bank.
    7. Jessie Jiaxu Wang, 2023. "Workplace Automation and Corporate Liquidity Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-023, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Ricardo Duque Gabriel, 2022. "The Credit Channel of Public Procurement," GEE Papers 0171, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Nov 2022.
    9. Gao, Haoyu & Wen, Huiyu & Wang, Xingjian, 2022. "Pandemic effect on corporate financial asset holdings: Precautionary or return-chasing?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Kim, Hyeong Joon & Han, Seung Hun & Mun, Seongjae, 2022. "Analyzing the effects of terrorist attacks on the value of cash holdings," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    11. Chunfang Cao & Wenxuan Hou & Xiumei Liu & Hongbo Pan, 2023. "Do Excess Funds Make Financially Constrained Firms Better Off? Evidence from IPOs in China," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(3), pages 818-846, September.
    12. Hong, Liu & Liu, Shiang, 2023. "Geographic diversification and corporate cash holdings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 381-409.
    13. Lin, Xiaowei & Li, Ao & Zhang, Pengdong & Chen, Wenchuan, 2023. "The disciplinary role of product market competition on cash holding," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 653-671.

    More about this item

    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:oup:rfinst:v:33:y:2020:i:9:p:4102-4138.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.