Precautionary motive or private benefit motive for holding cash: Evidence from CEO ownership
研究发现CEO所有权与现金持有正相关，且在高风险和高融资成本公司中更显著，但未发现弱治理公司中CEO因私利囤积现金的证据，表明所有权激励CEO预防性储蓄而非谋私。
This study examines how CEO ownership affects the motivation of firms to hold cash. We document a monotonic and positive relationship between CEO ownership and cash holdings. The effect is more pronounced for firms with higher firm-specific risk and larger external financing costs, suggesting that CEO ownership encourages firms to hold more cash as precautionary savings. However, we find no evidence that CEO ownership leads to cash hoarding in firms with weak corporate governance. Moreover, we show that firms with high CEO ownership and excess cash holdings have more capital expenditures and R&D expenses but do not have higher dividend payments and share repurchases. Nonetheless, shareholders’ perceived value of cash increases with CEO ownership, indicating that shareholders place a positive value on high levels of cash holdings associated with CEO ownership in the context of growing investment prospects. Overall, our findings support the notion that firm ownership aligns the interests of CEOs and shareholders, rather than encouraging managers to extract private benefits through hoarding cash.