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Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

High economic policy uncertainty forces firms to accumulate a higher level of cash than during normal business periods. However, it is not evident that economic policy uncertainty has a homogeneous impact across cash-holding distributions. This paper aims to study the impact of economic policy uncertainty, leverage and their interaction on cash-holding distributions.

This study adopted a quantile regression approach to examine the influence of economic policy uncertainty and firm leverage on firm-level cash-holding distributions. To investigate the influence across quantiles, the author estimated 19 quantiles between 0.05 and 0.95.

This study finds that both economic policy uncertainty and firm leverage significantly affect firm-level cash-holding distributions heterogeneously. But, the impact of the interaction of these two variables is significant only for firms placed in the 60th to 85th quantiles of cash holding distribution.

The study adds to the existing knowledge of determinants of firm-level cash holdings but takes exogenous variables as economic policy uncertainty. The paper builds on a unique sample setting wherein, the cash holdings of all nonfinancial firms have increased many folds, including housing companies in an emerging economy.

This study aims to investigate the impact of ownership by large shareholders (blockholders) on corporate cash holdings. The study further investigates heterogeneity in the relationship between blockholder ownership and corporate cash holdings.

Building on the precautionary and agency motives of corporate cash holdings, the study focuses on publicly listed firms from 22 European countries for the period from 2006 to 2015. Multiple pooled ordinary least square and fixed effects regression models are employed to examine the relationship between blockholder ownership and firms’ cash holdings.

This study documents a positive relationship between blockholder ownership and corporate cash holdings which indicates the role of blockholders in influencing firms’ cash holdings policies. However, further analyses show that the effect of blockholding on cash holdings depends on the type of blockholder. While the relationship is still positive between cash holdings and ownership by strategic blockholders, it turns negative for the ownership by institutional blockholders.

This study provides evidence for the important role played by firms’ ownership structures, and especially blockholding, in shaping firms’ cash holdings decisions. The findings are therefore of great value for investors, firms’ management and board and policy makers.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing an explanation of the contradictory results documented in the literature on the impact of blockholders on corporate cash holdings. This study, to the best of the author’s knowledge, is the first to examine the effect of blockholder ownership on cash holdings by distinguishing between different types of blockholder.