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This paper aims to investigate auditors’ pricing of excess cash holdings and the variation in their pricing decisions in light of the precautionary motives of cash holdings and certain firm-specific conditions and during periods of crisis.

The authors conduct the two-stage-least-squares multivariate analysis using a sample of publicly listed non-financial US firms for the period 2003 to 2021 (42,413 firm-year observations).

The findings show a significant positive relationship between excess cash and audit fee. Next, the authors find that audit pricing of excess cash is significantly higher for firms with lower financial constraints. However, the authors do not find evidence to suggest that auditors price excess cash significantly higher for firms with lower hedging needs. In additional analysis, the authors find evidence to suggest that auditors charge significantly less for excess cash in firms that report financial loss and firms operating in industries with high litigation risk. The additional analysis also reveals excess cash is not positively and significantly priced by auditors as a result of the global financial crisis and Covid-19 pandemic.

Most researchers have analyzed excess cash holding from the perspective of managers, i.e. agency conflict or managerial prudence, while somewhat neglecting auditors’ perception of the embedded risk of excess cash holdings. The authors provide new insights on auditors’ perspective of excess cash holding and identify certain factors/situation/conditions that cause variation in the audit fee premium. The findings offer useful insights for managers and shareholders who are interested in assessing the effects of excess cash holdings policies on the audit fee premium.

Using a comprehensive sample from developed and emerging economies, this study aims to examine whether foreign institutional investors (FIIs) enhance the value of excess cash by constraining the potential self-appropriating managerial propensity related to its inefficient utilization.

This study uses a large panel data set of firms from 32 non-US countries from 2007 to 2018. Using data from COMPUSTAT Global and S&P Capital IQ, this study uses ordinary least squares regression with year- and firm-fixed effects for the baseline analysis. In addition, two-stage least squares with instrumental variable regression and propensity score matching approaches were used to address the potential endogeneity.

This study shows that FIIs significantly increase the value of excess cash holdings. The authors also found that the positive impact of FIIs is more significant when investors come from common-law countries with better governance and investor protection. Furthermore, in countries and firms with weaker governance controls, the relationship between FIIs and the value of excess cash is stronger, consistent with the institutional monitoring hypothesis. Collectively, the findings imply that FIIs are advantageous to investees because they effectively promote the efficient deployment of corporate resources.

Collectively, the findings of this study imply that FIIs are advantageous to investees because they effectively promote the efficient deployment of corporate resources.

This study offers new evidence on how FIIs impact the value of excess cash in an international setting. In addition, it highlights the significance of the legal origin of institutional investors’ home country and the governance quality of host countries and investee firms in influencing the effect of foreign institutional monitoring on the value of excess cash.

This paper aims to examine the impact of gender diversity on boards and on top management positions on excess cash holdings.

The authors adopt the quantile regression approach to test the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holding. The sample consists of 1,235 firm-year observations for the period 2005–2017.

The authors find that board gender diversity negatively influences the level of excess cash. This result suggests that women appointed in the boardroom are effective in monitoring managerial actions, including financing policies. The results also show that by forcing companies to have a quota of women on their boards, the presence of women no longer has a negative impact on excess cash holdings. However, when women stand at the chief executive officer or chief financial officer position, they tend to accumulate cash for precautionary motives. These results suggest that women behave differently regarding excess cash holding as monitors compared to their role as decision-makers.

The results may be of interest to legislators who may decide to break the glass ceiling, preventing women from gaining greater access to senior management positions. This is in line with the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF Governance Code of 2020, which strongly recommends the recruitment of women to senior management positions. The results are also important to investors, who might be likely to trust companies in which women hold positions on boards of directors which may increase firm value. The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

This study investigates the role of women both as controllers and decision-makers in holding excessive amounts of cash. It also highlights new evidence on the impact the approach of appointing women on boards (enabling/coercive and market-based) can have on the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holdings.

This article analyzes the moderating role of investment opportunities, business risk and agency costs in shaping the nexus between excess cash and corporate performance.

This research uses dynamic regression models (two-step system generalized method of moments) to analyze the data related to 200 Turkish companies listed on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) for the years between 2009 and 2020.

The findings indicate that when excess cash increases, the financial performance deteriorates only for firms with lower investments compared to firms with more investments. In addition, investment contributes to better financial performance for firms that hold cash surplus, whereas the influence of investment is insignificant for firms that have insufficient cash. Agency costs of equity exacerbate the adverse impact of excess cash on financial performance while agency costs of debt mitigate this effect. Excess cash reduces the financial performance of highly leveraged firms. However, this impact becomes insignificant when debt ratio decreases. The findings also show that investment has more significant role than business risk in building the precautionary motive to hold cash.

The findings of this article are limited to the Turkish market. Future research is still needed in other emerging markets to compare the results and reveal more about the effect of excess cash on firm performance, and how other factors can change this effect.

The findings verify the increased significance of excess cash in the presence of investment opportunities and difficulties in accessing external funds. Nevertheless, the role of the equity related agency problem in reducing the benefits of cash surplus confirms the necessity of policies that support corporate governance, especially in emerging markets.

This article, according to the knowledge of author, is the first to examine the role of agency costs associated with debt and equity, and the compound effect of investment opportunities and business risk on the nexus between excess internal funds and corporate financial performance in emerging markets.

This paper provides new evidence on Indian tourism firms by investigating the role of a firm's financial conditions typified by its leverage, earnings, size, cash holdings, and excess cash in moderating the pandemic-led idiosyncratic volatility in its stock prices.

The authors employ a firm-level panel comprising 82 publicly-listed tourism firms from India. Firm risk is estimated for the period beginning January 2020 to December 2020.

This paper finds non-linear effects of the pandemic on the idiosyncratic risk of the sample firms. Precisely, stock price volatility rises, but as the market absorbs this information, volatility subsides even as the disease spreads further. Further, lower levels of past debt and earnings and higher cash holdings ameliorate the pandemic's effects on tourism firms' risk. Contrasting the view that “excess” cash reflects poor operational performance, we show that “excess” cash firms are better prepared to face the adverse effects of the pandemic.

This study’s sample period fully encompasses the first wave of the pandemic (January–December 2020) of the novel coronavirus infection spread.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to assess the moderating effects of company fundamentals on the risk of Indian tourism firms. In doing so, the authors account for non-linear effects of the pandemic on firms' idiosyncratic volatility over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how state ownership influences value of cash in an institutional environment supporting soft-budget constraint.

This study employs an interaction between state ownership and excess cash to examine how state ownership affects value of cash holdings based on Fama and French’s (1998) valuation model.

With a research data of 3,294 observations from 548 firms over the period 2009–2016, the authors find that state ownership is positively related to market value of cash. Moreover, this relationship is weaker in financially constrained firms.

Although prior studies document a consistently negative effect of state ownership on market value of cash holdings, the authors argue that this effect may still be opposite. When managers of high state ownership firms rely on soft-budget constraint and save less cash, outside investors with this information disadvantage may focus more on precautionary motive and transaction motive than agency costs of cash holdings. As a result, value of cash holdings in high state ownership firms is higher. This paper contributes to the literature on corporate liquidity policy in emerging markets with new evidence on the role of state ownership in market value of cash holdings.

This paper aims to discover the underlying mechanisms by which corporate financial policies, cash holdings, capital structure and dividend payouts, transmit their effects on firm value in the “Middle East and North Africa” (MENA) emerging markets.

The authors employ a novel integration of path modelling with parallel multiple mediation analysis to empirically test the hypothesised indirect effects through the mechanisms represented by the value of financial flexibility (VOFF) and agency costs.

The authors do not find any evidence of the association between cash holdings, dividend payouts, and firm value when the mechanisms through the VOFF and agency costs are considered. While these two forces, i.e. the VOFF and agency costs, have balanced mediation effects on the relationship between cash holdings and firm value, they represent equivalent and complementary mechanisms by which dividend payouts transmit their positive impact on firm value. Moreover, we document a significant negative partial mediation effect of agency costs on the relationship between leverage and firm value; however, we do not find any evidence supporting the mediation effect of the VOFF on such a relationship.

This paper sheds new light on the forces that govern the nature of the relationships between corporate financial policies and firm value.

This study aims to investigate the influence of macroeconomic conditions on corporate cash holdings in terms of their influence on the level of cash and the speed of adjustment of cash to target levels in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC).

The study employs both static and dynamic regression analyses considering a sample of 2,878 firm-year observations drawn from stock markets in GCC countries over the 2010–2018 period.

Consistent with the precautionary motive, the results show that GCC firms tend to accumulate cash reserves in weak economic periods. Evidence also reveals that the estimated adjustment coefficients from dynamic panel models show that GCC firms adjust more slowly toward their target cash ratio in periods of unfavorable economic conditions.

This study has important implications for managers, policymakers and regulators. For managers, the study is an important reference to understand and design cash management policies by considering financial constraints imposed by macroeconomic conditions. In particular, managers should pay more attention to periods of credit crunch and weak economic conditions in which firms may be exposed to greater bankruptcy risks. For policymakers and regulators, this study may be useful in assessing the effect of macroeconomic factors on firm's cash holding decision. Therefore, in an effort to increase the supply of external financing available to firms, policymakers may devise investment friendly environment by controlling macroeconomic factors.

This paper offers some insights on the macro determinants of cash holdings by investigating emerging economies. It explores the role of macroeconomic conditions on corporate cash holdings in terms of their influence on the costs of external funds and financial constraints.

This study aims to examine the effect of corporate cash holdings on financial performance. Additionally, it investigates the moderating effect of corporate governance and family ownership on the link between corporate cash holdings and financial performance.

This study uses secondary data regarding the sample of 81 firms listed in the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100 index from 2011 to 2020. The present study applies the system generalized method of moments (GMM) to estimate the dynamic financial performance models.

The findings reveal that corporate cash holding is significantly positively linked with financial performance. Further, the findings indicate that the board size and chief executive officer (CEO) duality strengthen the association between cash holdings and financial performance, whereas CEO gender and family ownership weaken the positive effect of cash holdings on financial performance. Furthermore, the findings suggest that Covid-19 significantly negatively affected the financial performance of Pakistani firms.

The findings have several policy implications. First, policymakers need to increase the board of directors' role in observing the firms' cash-holding behaviour. Policymakers may also formulate policies providing stronger protection for minority shareholders from majority shareholders.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine how corporate governance and family ownership influence the link between corporate cash holdings and financial performance in the context of Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether air pollution has significant impact on corporate cash holdings and financial leverage.

The data of 199 firms listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange during the period 2009–2020 is analyzed by using pooled ordinary least squares and two-step system generalized method of moments models.

The results indicate that firms in regions with high air pollution tend to increase cash level. In addition, the positive effect of air pollution on cash level is stronger and more significant for environmentally sensitive firms and firms with low operational and distress risk. The results also show insignificant effect of air pollution on financial leverage.

Firms in regions with high air pollution should conduct proactive environmental protection procedures and enhance their eco-efficiency instead of holding excess cash that could negatively affect financial performance. In this context, policymakers should provide financial facilities to firms located in regions with high air pollution and that have low ability to finance environmental investments. On the other hand, the environmental laws and regulations introduced by regulatory authorities can enhance the economic development and firm performance by decreasing the adverse influences of air pollution on corporate financial policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is one of few that examines the impact of air pollution on corporate cash holdings and financial leverage in emerging markets.