The cash premium in international stock returns

The positive cash-return relation, previously found in the USA, is similarly present in international Europe, Australasia, and the Far East (EAFE) markets over the sample period 1990–2016. Across the 20 developed non-U.S. equity markets, high-cash firms outperform low-cash firms on average by 4.2% per year after controlling for firm size, book-to-market, momentum, operating profitability, and investment. Though the observed cash premium varies with the firm’s level of debt, a rational risk-based pricing view falls short of fully understanding the effect. Instead, the observed cash premium reflects price corrections arising from the reversal of investors’ expectation errors concerning the impact of cash on the firm’s future performance and is therefore the outcome of mispricing.