• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.1-34
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• 2009

We test the effect of corporate cash holdings on firm value by using the KOSPI listed firms over the period between 2002 and 2007 from the agency theories perspective, which has not been the central interest of prior studies. Unlike existing studies, using the manager's ownership ratio or foreign investor's shareholder ratio as a proxy variable for agency costs, we use the individual firm's corporate governance scores by the KCGS to test the effect of agency costs on the value of firm's cash holdings. We find that a firm value is positively related with its cash holdings. We also find that a firm with good corporate governance tends to experience a higher value of its cash holdings, compared with a firm with bad corporate governance. These results are consistent even after controlling for the endogeneity problems between corporate governance and firm value, strongly supporting the agency theory of cash holdings. Therefore, a firm's cash holdings, even from liquidity or precautionary motives, could increase the firm cash value, as long as its managers' interest is shareholders' wealth maximization rather than their private benefits.