通货膨胀预期与企业现金持有行为

Expected Inflation and Firms' Behavior of Cash Holdings

本文采用央行发布的未来物价预期指数、随机游走模型和简单菲利普斯曲线模型计量预期通货膨胀率,研究企业现金持有行为是否受到预期通货膨胀率波动的影响。本文研究发现,在预期通货膨胀率上升时,企业将减少现金持有,而这一现象在非国有企业体现得更为明显。我们进一步将企业现金来源区分为经营性活动、投资性活动和融资性活动,发现预期通胀率主要影响经营性活动现金流量,尤其影响企业的经营性现金支出。本文的研究显性化了通货膨胀对企业的影响,得到的经验证据丰富了宏观经济政策与微观主体行为的互动关系、拓展了企业持有现金动机方面的研究,同时有助于加深对通货膨胀与微观企业之间关系的认识。

This paper investigates how expected inflation influences firms＇ cash holdings. Using the Price Expectation Index in the depositor survey reported by People＇ s Bank of China, random walk model and simple Phillips curve model to measure expected inflation, we find that expected inflation level is significantly negatively related with finns＇ cash holdings. The above relationship is much more pronounced in non-SOEs. Further, we differentiate the source of cash with operating, investing and financing activities, and empirical results show that cash flows from op- erating part , especially the payout of cash, is mainly affected by expected inflation level. Our study contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of inflation at a finn level, develops literatures on the motivation of corporate cash holdings, and sheds some lights on the relationship between macro policy and micro activities.