Corporate cash holding and firm value

Firm structure and corporate cash holdings

Article history: Received 31 August 2009 Received in revised form 24 May 2010 Accepted 2 June 2010 Available online 10 June 2010 We analyze whether the organizational structure of firms (i.e., whether a firm is diversified or focused) affects their cash holdings. Using Compustat firm level and segment-level data, we find that diversified firms hold significantly less cash than their focused cou...

Firm Selection and Corporate Cash Holdings∗

The gradual replacement of traditional U.S. public companies by more R&D-intensive firms is key to understanding the secular trend in average cash-holdings. Over the last 35 years, an increasing share of R&D—intensive firms has entered the stock market with progressively higher cash-balances. This positive entry-effect dominates the negative within-firm effect post IPO. We build a firm industry...

Tax Avoidance , Corporate Transparency , and Firm Value

Stakeholder Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Firm Value∗

We consider the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers as well as shareholders compared to shareholderoriented firms. Societies with stakeholder-oriented firms have higher prices, lower output, and can have greater firm value than shareholder-oriented societies. In some circumstances, firms may voluntarily choose to be stakehol...

Understanding Firm Value and Corporate Governance

An impressive volume of careful empirical studies finds evidence that the strength of firms’ corporate governance tends to be positively correlated with their financial performance; that is, firms that score higher on some measure of governance tend to outperform those which score worse. These findings are a puzzle insofar as we expect those who decide how a firm is organized, including its cor...