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This study empirically analyzes the effects of political corruption on corporate cash holdings policy and the impact of cash holdings on firm performance using 97 multinational data. We find that there is a nonlinear cubic function relationship between the political corruption and corporate cash holdings with a negative coefficient of cubic term of political corruption. Specifically, in developed countries with low levels of political corruption, there is a U-shape relationship between political corruption and cash holdings; however, in frontier and emerging countries, there is an Inverted-U-shape relationship. These results show that two hypothesis ‘Expropriation Shielding hypothesis’ and ‘Preoccupancy hypothesis’ on previous literature are not conflicting, but can be explained differently according to the level of development of countries and the level of political corruption. In addition, we find that the effects of political corruption on firm performance when firms use cash are different in developed and developing countries. From these results, we suggest that political corruption is an important variable in corporate financial policy and firm performance.

This study investigates the cultural determinant of board structure by examining the impact of the geographic divergence of gambling preference induced by religion. Using the county’s Catholic-to-Protestant ratio to proxy for gambling preference, we find that firms headquartered in gambling-prone regions tend to have smaller and less independent boards. We argue that the religiously induced risk-taking environment of the county influences the firms headquartered there, and this influence is reflected in the firm’s board structure. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on cultural determinants of board structure.

This study examines the effect of CEO characteristics on the value of excess cash using the listed firm data in Korea. We find that firms with business major CEO have significantly higher value of excess cash compared to the other firms, but science and engineering major have no significant effect. Moreover, firms with MBA CEO and master CEO increase the value of excess cash. Age and tenure have negative impact on the value of excess cash, but newly appointment of CEO has positive impact on the value of excess cash. Our study suggests that the value of excess cash depends on CEO characteristics such as educational backgrounds and CEO demographics.

This study examines the impacts of business group affiliation, ownership disparity, and corporate governance on cash holdings and the value of excess cash of firms, using business group data from Korea, where such organizations are called “chaebols.” We find that Korean chaebol-affiliated firms have lower (higher) cash holdings (value of excess cash) compared to non-chaebol-affiliated firms; however, ownership disparity increases (decreases) cash holdings (value of excess cash) in chaebol firms. Furthermore, corporate governance enhances the value of excess cash and alleviates the negative effect of the ownership disparity in cash value for chaebol firms.