Search Results
Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 22.
(refine search)
Working Paper
Who holds cash? and why?
Cash holdings of nonfinancial firms range widely, and are related to firm size, industry and access to the public bond market. Cash holdings are positively correlated with agency proxies, suggesting that firms that cannot borrow easily due to agency problems hold greater cash stocks--perhaps as a cushion to prevent shortfalls in cash flow from impinging on investment. However, this correlation holds only for the very highest cash holders, especially small firms. The group of afflicted firms appears to be less than one-quarter of COMPUSTAT firms. Agency proxies are irrelevant for a large ...
Newsletter
Corporate Cash Flow and Its Uses
We decompose corporate cash flow into its primary components to examine how funds are being internally allocated and to elucidate current trends in corporate behavior. By historical standards, capital investment has been low and shareholder payouts have been high over the past few years, although these patterns do not seem so abnormal once recent economic and financial conditions are factored in. That said, corporate debt levels are now somewhat higher than we would expect given the rather tepid economic recovery from the Great Recession.
Working Paper
Evidence on the role of cash flow for investment
Journal Article
Cash flow or present value: what's lurking behind that hedge?
Working Paper
Why doesn’t technology flow from rich to poor countries?
What is the role of a country?s financial system in determining technology adoption? To examine this, a dynamic contract model is embedded into a general equilibrium setting with competitive intermediation. The terms of finance are dictated by an intermediary?s ability to monitor and control a firm?s cash flow, in conjunction with the structure of the technology that the firm adopts. It is not always profitable to finance promising technologies. A quantitative illustration is presented where financial frictions induce entrepreneurs in India and Mexico to adopt less-promising ventures than in ...
Discussion Paper
Small business use of credit cards in the U.S. market
America?s small businesses have adopted credit cards as both a payment method and a borrowing vehicle. The segment also uses other payment card products, including debit, charge, and prepaid cards. The dollar volume of spending with cards designed for small businesses increased by 230 percent over the five-year period from 2003-2008. But the recession of 2007-2009 and contemporaneous changes in the regulatory environment had effects on both the supply to and demand of small businesses with respect to credit cards. To obtain an update on these issues, the Payment Cards Center hosted a workshop ...
