Book Description

There are three essays in this dissertation. First essay provides empirical evidence that agency cost is a significant determinant of firms’ cash holdings. We reach the following three conclusions: (i) firms’ cash holdings increase in the strength of investor protection, (ii) excess cash holdings are valued more with better investor protection, and (iii) cross-listed firms that improve investor protection through “bonding” hold relatively more cash than non-cross-listed firms. In the second essay, we find that consistent with agency theory and free cash flow hypothesis, the effect of the combination of excess cash and strong governance on firm valuation varies by firms’ investment opportunities and acquisitions. We find a value-added effect of excess cash for firms with strong governance when there is low level of free cash flow and acquisitions. On the contrary, for firms with high free cash flow that engage in acquisitions, the combination of excess cash and governance does not add value. Further, poor investment opportunities are value-destroying, although excess cash adds value for firms with stronger governance regardless of the level capital expenditure. In the third essay, we find that there is a uniform co-movement liquidity beyond the BBO as measured by strings. The liquidity beyond the BBO is ubiquitously invariant across trading days, while remarkably variant across securities. The variations of depth and the variations of immediacy needed for the common movement of liquidity beyond BBO, however for the first time, are found to be moderate and large respectively across trading days. These aspects of liquidity beyond the BBO are positively correlated with return volatility of strings.