عدم اطمینان سیاست و دارایی های نقدی شرکت
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Empirical prediction
3- Samples, variables construction, and descriptive statistics
4- Empirical models, results, and discussions
5- Robustness checks and additional analyses
6- Conclusions
References
Abstract
This research examines the relation between government economic policy uncertainty and firm cash holdings. We find evidence that policy uncertainty is positively related to firm cash holdings due to firms' precautionary motives and, to a lesser extent, investment delays. The relation between policy uncertainty and cash holdings is more pronounced for firms dependent on government spending and extends beyond business cyclicality. Further analysis indicates that the effects of policy uncertainty on corporate cash holdings are distinct from those of political, market, or other macroeconomic uncertainty.
Introduction
Government economic policy uncertainty can have detrimental effects on the economy. Previous research suggests that uncertainty related to government spending, tax, and regulatory and monetary policies exacerbated the 2007–2009 Great Recession and slowed the economic recovery (Baker, Bloom, & Davis, 2016; Stock & Watson, 2012). The level of policy uncertainty in the United States increased significantly during the period 1985–2012, peaking around the government's failure in raising federal debt-ceiling in August 2011 and the fiscal cliff crisis at the end of 2012 whereby several previously enacted laws would come into effect simultaneously, potentially leading to an increase in taxes and a decrease in spending.1 Economic policy uncertainty was suggested to have caused more than one-percentage-point decrease in the U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) and the loss of over one million jobs during the period 2011–2012 (source: Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2013).2 Given the profound impact of policy uncertainty on the economy, academic researchers have shown increasing interest in investigating the effects of policy uncertainty on corporate policies. Recent studies document that government economic policy uncertainty has negative financial and real effects. Gulen and Ion (2016) and Nguyen and Phan (2017) report that firms are more likely to delay investments, particularly those that are irreversible, amid high economic policy uncertainty. Policy uncertainty can increase the cost of external financing, which exacerbates firms' financial constraints (Gilchrist, Sim, & Zakrajšek, 2014; Pástor & Veronesi, 2013).