The value of corporate cash holdings during the Covid-19 pandemic

This paper investigates the value of corporate cash holdings during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a sample of 147,512 firm-quarter observations of 51 countries, I find that the value of cash holdings strongly increased at the start of the pandemic in 2021, but diminished again in the later part of the pandemic. Using country-level measures of the impact of the pandemic, I further document that the value of cash is higher for firms that are located in countries with higher infection rates of COVID-19. Finally, I find that the positive effect of COVID-19 on the value of cash holdings is stronger in weak corporate governance countries with high infection rates in the first year of the pandemic, which is consistent with the argument that the likelihood of cash abuse is reduced in countries with weak corporate governance where COVID-19 hits hard.