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All You Need is Cash: Corporate Cash Holdings and Investment after the Financial Crisis

Author

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  • Joseph, Andreas
  • Kneer, Christiane
  • van Horen, Neeltje
Abstract
This paper studies how cash holdings at the onset of the global financial crisis afffected the investment behavior of SMEs after the shock. We use balance sheet data for a large sample of UK SMEs and introduce a novel identification strategy exploiting the volatility of cash holdings to reduce endogeneity concerns. We find that cash holdings are a key determinant of investment by SMEs not only during the crisis but also during the recovery period. Cash-rich SMEs could maintain their capital stock during the global financial crisis, while cash-poor rivals reduced theirs. This gave cash-rich SMEs an advantage when the economy rebounded, resulting in a persistent investment gap which grew over the seven years following the shock. The amplification effect was particularly pronounced for younger and smaller firms and in industries where credit conditions tightened more. Competition dynamics and borrowing constraints seem to drive this amplification effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph, Andreas & Kneer, Christiane & van Horen, Neeltje, 2022. "All You Need is Cash: Corporate Cash Holdings and Investment after the Financial Crisis," CEPR Discussion Papers 14199, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14199
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    Cited by:

    1. Giorgio Calcagnini & Laura Gardini & Germana Giombini & Edgar S. Carrera, 2022. "Does too much liquidity generate instability?," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(1), pages 191-208, January.
    2. Masami Imai & Michiru Sawada, 2022. "Does a Financial Crisis Impair Corporate Innovation?," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2022-002, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    3. Yacine Belghitar & Andrea Moro & Nemanja Radić, 2022. "When the rainy day is the worst hurricane ever: the effects of governmental policies on SMEs during COVID-19," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 943-961, February.
    4. Didier, Tatiana & Huneeus, Federico & Larrain, Mauricio & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2021. "Financing firms in hibernation during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    5. David Aikman & Daniel Beale & Adam Brinley-Codd & Anne-Caroline Hüser & Giovanni Covi & Caterina Lepore, 2023. "Macro-Prudential Stress Test Models: A Survey," IMF Working Papers 2023/173, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Ahmad, Muhammad Farooq & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2021. "Collective bargaining power and corporate cash policy," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    7. Diekhof, Josefine & Krieger, Bastian & Licht, Georg & Rammer, Christian & Schmitt, Johannes & Stenke, Gero, 2021. "The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on innovation: First in-sights from the German business sector," ZEW Expert Briefs 21-06, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Carolina Correa-Caro & Leandro Medina & Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro & Bennett Sutton, 2021. "Fiscal Stimulus and Firms’ Sales and Capital Expenditure During the Global Financial Crisis," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(3), pages 489-535, September.
    9. Bruno Albuquerque, 2024. "Corporate debt booms, financial constraints, and the investment nexus," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 766-789, August.
    10. Van Dijcke, David & Buckmann, Marcus & Turrell, Arthur & Key, Tomas, 2023. "Vacancy posting, firm balance sheets, and pandemic policy," Bank of England working papers 1033, Bank of England.
    11. Antonis Kotidis & Margaux MacDonald & Dimitris Malliaropulos, 2024. "Guaranteeing Trade in a Severe Crisis: Cash Collateral Over Bank Guarantees," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 261-282, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm investment; Cash holdings; Credit constraints; Financial crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

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