The effects of country and firm-level governance on cash management

We examine the effects of both country and firm-level governance on cash holdings and the value of cash for a large international sample during the period 2002-2013. We find that both strong country and strong firm-level governance reduce the amount of cash holdings. We observe that a number of the components of both firm and country-level governance are significantly related to the decrease in cash holdings. We show that the value of cash increases as a result of good country-level governance and we provide mixed evidence that good firm-level governance also increases the value of cash. Our analysis also confirms that the payment of dividends adds to the value of cash.