현금보유수준과 미래이익의 정보효과

Abstract

This study investigates whether cash holding ratio(abnormal cash holding ratio) is associated with the information effect of future earnings(Future Earnings Response Coefficient, hereafter ‘FERC’). Specifically, we investigate the association between current-year stock returns and future earnings for firms with different degrees of cash holding. The empirical model examines how much information about future earnings is reflected in the change in current stock price. According to Tucker and Zarowin(2006) model, the change in current stock price captures the change in investors’ expectation for future earnings. Using the approach of Tucker and Zarowin(2006), we find that the change in the current stock price of high cash holding firms contains more information about their future earnings than does the change in the stock price of low cash holding firms. Although cash holding has been widely documented in the past, its effect on earnings informativeness is largely unknown. On one hand, Jensen(1986) suggested the free cash flow hypothesis, predicting that shareholders will choose to limit managers’ access to free cash flow to mitigate agency conflicts over its deployment. On the other hand, Harford et al.(2008) report that firms with weaker shareholder rights and low insider ownership have lower cash reserves than those with stronger shareholder rights and high insider ownership. The effect of cash holding on agency problem and FERC is still an open, empirical question. Our study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on this issue. Our paper is closely related to Harford et al.(2008). Harford et al.(2008) find that firms with weaker corporate governance structures actually have smaller cash reserves. Their finding suggests that cash reserves are negatively associated with the degree of agency problem. Based on this analysis, we expect a positive association between cash holdings and FERC. If cash holding makes earnings more informative, then returns should reflect more information about future earnings, and the FERC should be higher for firms with high level of cash holding. The hypothesis is tested by using sample firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange from the year of 2002 to the year of 2009 inclusively. We followed methodology of Tucker and Zarowin(2006). If cash holding reduces the agency conflicts, then the coefficient on Cash×Xt3 should be positive. We find that the regression coefficient for cash holding ratio×Xt3(abnormal cash holding ratio×Xt3) shows a statistically significant positive sign. Also, we performed additional test after controlling for variables related with FERC. The regression coefficient for cash holding ratio×Xt3(abnormal cash holding ratio×Xt3) is consistent with main results. To address potential cross-sectional correlations in the pooled regressions, we performed Fama-MacBeth analysis. The results were similar to our main findings. In addition, we also examined the change in cash holding ratio, and found similar results. This result means that the changes in the current stock price of high cash holding ratio firms contain more information about their future earnings than the changes in the stock price of low cash holding ratio firms. In this respect, these results imply that high cash holding ratio increases the information effect of future earnings. The results suggest that stock price would be more informative about future earnings for firms with high cash holding ratio. Also this study contributes to extant literature on cash holding ratio by providing evidence that cash holding ratio is positively related to FERC.