Cash holdings of politically connected firms

Politically connected firms benefit from soft-budget constraints and are unlikely to suffer from liquidity constraints. This argument suggests that politically connected firms should hold less cash than non-connected peers. Another view posits that these firms exhibit acute corporate governance problems. In this setting, politically connected firms are more likely to hold more cash than non-connected firms. Using a sample of 50,119 firm-year observations from 31 countries, we find that politically connected firms hold more cash than their non-connected peers. We put forth two explanations for this result. Firstly, politicians use politically connected firms as “cash cows” to advance their political agendas. Secondly, political connections are conducive to agency problems. In additional analyses, we find that the positive relationship between political connections and cash holdings is stronger when corporate governance is weak.     

谈“电荒”来袭的应对之策

2011年夏季用电高峰前夕,我国一些发达省市已出现电荒,不得不采取拉闸限电措施。文章分析了夏季电荒的成因,就解决电荒问题提出应对之策。     

An investigation of the short‐ and long‐run relations between executive cash bonus payments and firm financial performance: a pitch

This letter is a discussion of the application of the pitch template developed by Faff (2015) to a financial accounting research topic. The pitch template focuses ideas into key areas, giving clear and concise direction in planning and structuring the research idea. In this instance, the template is used in a nonlinear manner to develop a research proposal to investigate the relation between cash bonus payments and firm financial performance.     

Liquidity implications of reverse logistics for retailers: A Markov chain approach

The reverse logistics process can generate periodic negative cash flows that are difficult to predict and account for, but are important when managing retailer liquidity. Uncertainties surrounding reverse logistics create the possibility that the retailer may be strained in meeting short-run financial obligations or opportunities. The current research offers a Markov chain approach to modeling the expectations, risks, and potential shocks associated with cash flows stemming from retail reverse logistics activities. Managerial recommendations for avoiding liquidity problems stemming from reverse logistics activities are provided.     

Cash holdings and business group membership

This study examines the cash policies of business group members (i.e., affiliates). Using a panel dataset of private Belgian affiliates and comparable non-affiliated firms, the empirical results show that business group affiliates hold significantly smaller amounts of cash as compared to non-affiliated firms. This finding is consistent with the notion that affiliates can afford to keep lower cash reserves because these firms can access the internal capital market of the group. The analysis also combines affiliate level and group level data to evaluate cash drivers and shows that groups in financial distress reduce cash holdings in affiliates. However, affiliates that are more important for the group's reputation and operations maintain cash levels comparable to affiliates belonging to financially healthy groups.     

不同治理环境下制造业公司现金持有对其绩效影响研究

基于我国A股制造业上市公司2002~2011年数据,利用樊纲等编制的中国各地区市场化进程数据构建公司的治理环境,实证研究治理环境、公司现金持有与绩效之间的关系。研究发现,公司现金持有对其绩效产生了正面的影响,在治理环境差的地区这种影响更加明显。在治理环境好的地区,相对于国有公司,非国有公司现金持有对绩效的影响更大。在治理环境差的地区,国有公司和非国有公司的绩效对现金持有的敏感度差异较小。     

基于人力资本背景下民工荒问题的对策建议

近年来,随着国内经济的发展,很多省市都出现了＂民工荒＂现象。从表象看,产生＂民工荒＂是因为需求增加、供给减少;从人力资本视角看,导致民工荒的主要因素是我国农村人力资本存量较小、质量较差,地域分布不均衡、积累起点低。较低的人力资本会对民工外出打工有一定的限制,较高的人力资本投资有助于劳动力外流。解决＂民工荒＂问题,政府应加大对农村人力资本投资力度：加大对农村基础教育投入力度,大力发展农村成人教育和技术培训,进一步完善农村医疗卫生保障体系;调节人力资本在不同地区的分配;加快提高农民工的待遇。     

Do hotel REIT companies face investment constraints? A comparison with C-corporation hotel companies

This study investigates whether corporate investment by REIT hotel companies (hotel REITs hereafter) is more constrained than investment by C-corporation hotel companies (hotel C-corps hereafter). The investments of hotel REITs and hotel C-corps are examined by comparing the sensitivities of investment to cash flow and investment opportunities between the two groups. Results show that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow is positive and significantly higher for hotel REITs than for hotel C-corps, suggesting that hotel REITs are likely to experience more constraints on their corporate investment. This finding suggests that hotel firms and owners should be more cautious about electing to be a REIT if they are planning large investments in the future. In addition, this finding has policy implications; even a small reduction in the rate of mandatory dividend payouts could significantly increase hotel REITs’ corporate investments.     

Cash management using multi-stage stochastic programming

We consider a cash management problem where a company with a given financial endowment and given future cash flows minimizes the Conditional Value at Risk of final wealth using a lower bound for the expected terminal wealth. We formulate the optimization problem as a multi-stage stochastic linear program (SLP). The company can choose between a riskless asset (cash), several default- and option-free bonds, and an equity investment, and rebalances the portfolio at every stage. The uncertainty faced by the company is reflected in the development of interest rates and equity returns. Our model has two new features compared to the existing literature, which uses no-arbitrage interest rate models for the scenario generation. First, we explicitly estimate a function for the market price of risk and change the underlying probability measure. Second, we simulate scenarios for equity returns with moment-matching by an extension of the interest rate scenario tree.     

Financing R&D in mature companies: An empirical analysis

We study financing patterns of publicly traded R&D-intensive manufacturing firms in Israel. We further characterize R&D-intensive firms by size, physical capital intensity, and whether they issued stocks in the United States, asking whether these features are associated with particular financing patterns. To address these issues, we present, for the first time, adjusted flow of funds charts that treat R&D expenses as a capital outlay (rather than an operating cost that reduces profits, as standard accounting principles prescribe). We also address the question of how R&D inputs should be measured - using R&D expenses or R&D personnel. We construct both expenditure- and personnel-based R&D measures for each firm in our sample, and investigate to what extent these measures are mutually consistent.