Análise da relação entre stock de liquidez e cash flow

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the relationship between the cash holdings and companies cash flows, in the context of the literature about the policies of liquidity and the financial constraints. It was also analyzed the impact of the financial constraints in the liquidity levels. To make it possible, some data were collected from listed and non-financial companies in Portugal and Spain, through the database Datastream, reaching a total of 45 Portuguese and 120 Spanish companies. To analyze the relationship between the cash holdings and the cash flow three different models of regression were used. First it was done an OLS regression, followed by two panel data regressions, more exactly the models of fixed and random effects. Through the results that were reached it was possible to conclude that there is a positive relationship between the cash holdings and cash flow, that is in consonance with the theory of pecking-order and the studies done by Opler et al., (1999) and Ferreira – Vilela (2004). There is convincing evidence that the companies accumulate liquidity to use it as the first source to finance their investment projects, and so the companies with higher cash flows can keep a higher capital and reach superior levels of liquidity. It was not possible to find significant results to the relationship between the cash holdings and the uncertainty of the cash flows. The same results were found in the studies of Ozkan - Ozkan (2002) and Noguera – Omar (2012). Through the inclusion of a dummy variable that differentiates Portugal from Spain, it was clear that the Portuguese companies have inferior levels of liquidity in relation to Spain. In relation to the analysis of the impact of the financial restrictions in cash holdings, the results which were found contradict the existent literature. The results suggest that the levels of liquidity of the companies with financial constraints are inferior. These conclusions contradict the precautionary motive and the studies done by Almeida et al., (2004) and Han – Qiu (2007), that refer that the levels of liquidity must be higher when the companies show financial constraints.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luis Pacheco (Supervisor)