The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Wall of cash: The investment-cash flow sensitivity when capital becomes abundant

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

In the mid 2000s the oil and gas industry was hit by what might be best described as a 'wall of cash' as oil prices successively reached new record levels and access to external financing improved greatly. In this article we investigate what this sudden abundance of liquidity implied for the investment-cash flow relationship, the interpretation of which continues to generate controversy in the literature. For financially constrained firms we find that the investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases in the abundance period (2005-2008), suggesting that the financing constraints became less binding in this period. For financially unconstrained firms the investment-cash flow sensitivity instead increases over time, suggesting that this relationship is driven by agency problems related to free cash flow. Our paper is the first in the investment-cash flow literature to bring evidence from a natural experiment in which there was an unexpected, exogenous, substantial, and persistent decrease in the cost of external financing. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

204-213

Publication/Series

Journal of Banking & Finance

Volume

50

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Corporate investment
  • Financing constraints
  • Agency costs
  • Investment-cash flow sensitivity

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1872-6372