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Do U.S. Firms Hold Too Much Cash

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The first theories to hold cash is to avoid the cost of being short liquid assets (Baumol, 1952) (Tobin, 1956) (Meltzer, 1963) (Miller and Orr, 1966) and Karni (1973). Besides the fact that the cash-to-assets ratio for U.S. firms almost doubled (Bates, Kahle & Stulz, 2009) we think that U.S. firms do not hold too much cash. Firms hold cash for different motives. According to Keynes (1936) these motives are: a transaction motive, precautionary motive and speculative motive. Based upon these three motives we explain why U.S. firms hold a lot of cash.
The first motive for holding cash is the precautionary motive (Keynes, 1936), which tells us that firms hold extra cash to be prepared for sudden uncertainty - a risk which cannot be hedged. Bates et al. (2009) states that an increase in idiosyncratic risk leads to an increase in cash flow volatility. This volatility increase evolves in an increase in the volatility of unhedgeable risk. A reaction to unhedgeable risk is to hold more cash. You want to have some savings when you have to do unexpected expenses.
Research (Bartram, 2009) shows that U.S. firms are more exposed to idiosyncratic risk than foreign firms. This is due to several country characteristics. Because U.S. firms face larger exposures to idiosyncratic risks than foreign firms do, they will have more cash holdings.
Moreover, there has been an increase in earnings volatility for U.S. firms over the past decades (Boileau and Moyen, 2012). This increase in volatility and, thus, risk is compensated by an increase in cash holdings and credit lines. So one might say that U.S. firms are holding too much cash, but this is seems quite legit when looking at their exposures to unseen losses/ sudden risks.
Another precautionary motive (Keynes, 1936), but also a speculative motive, to hold cash is to use real estate. Real estate is another important factor which helps us to explain why US firms do not hold too much cash (Chen, Harford & Lin, 2013). Real estate is often used by firms as collateral. This is strong and safe way to store excess cash in fairly large amounts, with the certainty that you can access it at any given time. Therefore, it is an attractive way to store money. In addition, on of real estates’ characteristics always was that is value was fairly solid, therefore cash was stored almost risk-free.
However, this is exactly where the problem lies. A recent study from Chen et al (2013) showed that through a decreasing value of real estate companies hold increasingly more cash. Firms use a more stringent external financing policy to avoid losing money in these tough financial times. If a company would put money in real estate as collateral it would decrease in value and by that the firm would lose a lot of cash. This makes holding more cash the justified thing to do. The decreasing value of collateral therefore explains why US firms do not hold too much cash.
Our final reason for holding a lot cash is a transaction motive (Keynes, 1936), but subdivided by Bates et al (2009) into a tax motive. It is attractive to have more cash in the firm which involves foreign income and thereby the potential incentives with repatriations created by associated tax (Foley, Hartzell, Titman, Twite. 2007). Not only firms with foreign income experience an increase in the cash holdings but also the companies with no income from abroad (Bates, Kahle, and Stulz. 2006). Foley et al. (2007) found that U.S. corporations who have foreign subsidiaries hold a significant amount of money on the balance sheets. The multinationals in the U.S. hold cash in their foreign subsidiaries because of the tax costs associated with repatriating foreign income (Foley et al. 2007). Many countries, including the U.S., tax the foreign income of their firms, but the tax can be deferred until the earnings are repatriated. The consequence is that U.S. multinationals have incentives to retain the earnings in their foreign subsidiaries and thus are these firms holding significant more amounts of cash (Foley et al. 2007). In 2004 President Bush signed the American Job Creation Act. This act provides for an one-time 85 percent tax deduction for repatriated earnings (Foley et al. 2007). Proponents argue this act would spur the investments in multinationals and job growth in the U.S but the high repatriation tax burdens encourage the companies to hold the cash abroad.

REFERENCES: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2298628 Baumol, W. J., 1952. The transactions demand for money: an inventory theoretic approach. Quarterly Journal of Economics 66, 545-556.
Tobin, J., 1956. The interest-elasticity of the transactions demand for money. The Review of Economics and Statistics 48, 241-247.

Meltzer, A. H., 1963. The demand for money: A cross-section study of business firms. Quarterly Journal of Economics 79, 405-422.

Miller M. H., Orr, D., 1966. A model of demand for money by firms. Quarterly Journal of Economics 80, 413-435.

Karni, E., 1973. The transactions demand for cash: incorporation of the value of time into the inventory approach. Journal of Political Economy 81: 1216-1225.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes, 1936
Thomas Bates, Kathleen Kahle, and René Stulz, “Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?” Journal of Finance, 2009.
Bates, T. W., K. M. Kahle, and R. M. Stulz, 2009, Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To? Journal of Finance 64(5), 1985-2021
Bartram, Söhnke M., Gregory Brown, and René M. Stulz. 2009. Why Do Foreign Firms Have Less Idiosyncratic Risk than U.S. Firms? http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/seminars/moyen.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w14931.pdf?new_window=1 http://www.nber.org/papers/w12534.pdf?new_window=1 http://siepr.stanford.edu/?q=/system/files/shared/pubs/papers/briefs/PolicyBrief07_2013_1_v32.pdf

Foley, Fritz C, Hartzell, Jay C, Titman, Sheridan, and Twite, Gary, 2007. Why do firms hold so much cash? A tax-based explanation. Journal of Financial Economics 86 (2007), 579-607

Bates, T. W, Kahle, K. M., Stulz, R. M., 2006. Why do U.S. firms hold so much more money than they used to? Unpublished working paper 12534, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.

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