Associate Professor Kung-Cheng Ho, a researcher of the Base, has published a collaborative paper titled "Epidemics, local institutional quality, and corporate cash holdings" in International Review of Economics and Finance.

IREF is committed to publishing theoretical and empirical articles in the fields of international, macro and financial economics.

Abstract: The increase in corporate cash holdings, particularly in the U.S., has garnered significant attention from academia, the popular press, and policymakers. While most existing studies explain this trend using endogenous microeconomic measures, there is limited empirical evidence of what may have caused corporate cash holdings to decrease. From a macroeconomic perspective, this study provides the first examination of the effects of exogenous health epidemics and local institutional quality on corporate cash holdings, using a large and unique international dataset of 380,966 companies from 39 economies. The analysis reveals a decrease in corporate cash holdings during epidemics, particularly in countries with higher local institutional quality, as indicated by their financial regulatory and governance capacity. This study conducts a robustness test, and the findings underscore the importance of local institutional quality, particularly during epidemics.

Keywords: Epidemics, Institutional, quality, Cash holding

Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iref.2024.02.019

Teacher profile

Kung-Cheng Ho, Doctor of Taiwan Yuanzhi University, associate professor of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics. His research interest covers Corporate finance, credit risk management, corporate social responsibility, information asymmetry risk and cross-disciplinary research. His research interest is in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Emerging Markets Review, Energy Economics, International Review of Economics & Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Forecasting, Pacific-Baisn Finance Journal, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting and other international SSCI journals published more than 40 articles, including 1 ABS 4-star journals, 12 three-star journals and 17 SSCI first-region journals. In addition, he has preached papers in dozens of important academic conferences at home and abroad. Including China Annual Finance Conference, China Annual Financial Engineering Conference, China Annual Management Conference, CICF, American Accounting Association, Asian Finance Association, European Finance Association, Europe Financial Management Association, Financial Management Association, Taiwan Management Institute, Western Economic Association International, etc. In addition, he has reviewed manuscripts for more than 20 journals at home and abroad, including Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Economic Modelling, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Financial Innovation, Investment Analysts Journal, International Journal of Emerging Markets, International Review of Economics and Finance,  Managerial and Decision Economics, etc.