Author Abstract
I document that public U.S. firms hold twice as much cash as large privately held firms, a surprising finding that is robust to three alternative identification strategies: matching, within-firm variation, and instrumental variable. Public firms' greater access to capital accounts for about one-quarter of the difference. The remainder can be explained by differences in the extent to which public and private firms engage in market timing in response to misvaluation shocks. I show that the risk of misvaluation induces public firms to raise capital and accumulate cash reserves when they perceive their equity to be overvalued, resulting in greater demand for precautionary cash holdings.
Paper Information
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: April 2014
- HBS Working Paper Number: 14-095
- Faculty Unit(s): Finance