新冠肺炎疫情冲击下企业现金持有的预防价值研究

最近爆发的新冠肺炎疫情牵动着亿万民众的心,面对突如其来的疫情,企业资金面临着巨大压力。企业持有现金主要源于预防和交易动机,然而预防动机的特性决定了其在企业正常经营状态下难以直观体现,因而目前鲜有研究对企业现金持有的预防价值进行直接检验。本文以新冠肺炎疫情事件的冲击为研究切入点,通过考察不同现金持有水平的企业在面临危机冲击的市场反应,发现企业现金持有水平与事件窗口期内的累计超额收益率呈显著正相关关系,从而为现金持有的预防价值提供了更为直接的经验证据。而且,当公司受疫情冲击程度越大时,二者之间正相关关系越强。进一步发现,企业现金持有的预防价值在企业现金流压力大以及外部融资环境较差时更加凸显。本研究丰富了已有关于现金持有预防价值的相关文献,并对政府与企业应采取何种举措以应对突发事件具有一定的启示。

The Preventive Value of Corporate Cash Holdings Under the Impact of the Outbreak of the New Crown Pneumonia

Recently,the outbreak of the New Crown Pneumonia has touched the hearts of hundreds of millions of people.In the face of the sudden outbreak,the corporate is facing significant capital pressure.The existing literature on the value of cash holdings only focuses on the impact of transaction costs on the value of cash holdings but fails to fully focus on the possible preventive motives of cash holdings.Taking the impact of the outbreak of New Crown Pneumonia in China around the Spring Festival of 2020 as a research opportunity and using event study method,this paper studies the impact of corporate cash holdings on market recation.This paper finds that there was a significant positive correlation between cash holding level and excess cumulative return rate in the event window period by examining the market reaction of companies with different levels of cash holdings to shocks.On average,the cumulative excess return of enterprises with higher cash holdings is one percentage point above that of enterprises with lower cash holdings,showing that the outbreak of New Crown Pneumonia changes the market's expectations of the future cash flow of enterprise,lead to revaluation the preventive value of corporate cash holdings.Further analysis shows that the preventive value of cash holdings is higher when the impact of New Crown Pneumonia is more serious,the pressure of cash expenditure is greater and the external financing environment is worse.There are three contributions to this paper.Firstly,this paper provides relatively direct empirical evidence for the preventive value of cash holdings.Existing literature shows that the prevention motivation is one of the important factors to determine the level of cash holdings.However,since the prevention value is difficult to be reflected in the normal operation of enterprises,few papers provide empirical evidence on the prevention value of cash holdings.Taking the outbreak of New Crown Pneumonia as a research opportunity,this paper tests the preventive value of corporate cash holdings directly,which is conducive to enriching relevant literature in the field of cash holdings.Secondly,this paper enriches the research on the impact of crisis on enterprises.Taking the New Crown Pneumonia as a starting point,this paper studies the crisis events that have a very important impact on China's economy and society around the Spring Festival of 2020,which is helpful to improve the understanding of the impact of similar emergencies on enterprises.Finally,the conclusions of this paper provide policy suggestions and enlightenment to the government and enterprises on how to keep corporate cash stable in the face of unexpected crisis events.From the perspective of cash holdings,this paper puts forward the following suggestions on measures to deal with similar emergencies of the New Crown Pneumonia.Firstly,the government should take necessary measures to ease the financial pressure on enterprises.The outbreak of the New Crown Pneumonia is sudden,which seriously affects the normal production and operation of enterprises,and it is a great challenge for the capital pressure of enterprises.Government departments should formulate effective countermeasures to help enterprises tide over difficulties.For example,the government helps enterprises to carry out corresponding loans,provides financial subsidies and tax relief,delays the payment of corporate taxes and social security funds,adjusts water and electricity prices,and maintains a fair financing environment.Secondly,enterprises can increase their cash holdings to enhance their ability to cope with emergencies.Cash holding has preventive value and enterprises should comprehensively evaluate the agency cost and preventive value of cash holding,and formulate reasonable cash holding policies based on comprehensive consideration of their own normal cash outflow,short-term debt level and external financial development level.Thirdly,while preventing and controlling the epidemic,we should actively resume work and production.According to the development of the epidemic situation in various provinces and cities,the risk level of the epidemic should be divided,and precise measures should be taken to gradually support enterprises to resume production in an orderly manner,so as to alleviate the pressure of cash flow of enterprises.