| Sumario: | The article presents information on the corporate demand for cash. This article presents a historical model of non-financial corporate cash demand. The main thrust of the argument is that very large firms have had a different demand-for-cash function from other firms. When the business population changes substantially, relative increases or decreases in numbers tend to be greater where entry and exit are easier, among smaller firms. Thus, business structure has changed with business population. Aggregate corporate cash holding is therefore influenced over the long run by changes in corporate population, as well as by changes in aggregate receipts, interest rates and cyclical factors. Empirical estimates indicate that the sector's postwar holding of cash, relative to receipts, was substantially less than it would have been if the composition of the corporate population had not changed as the number of firms "exploded" after 1947. The Internal Revenue Service's annual Statistics of Income gives totals for selected assets and income statement variables for firms classified by type of business and size of assets. This permits comparison of group averages for firms of different sizes.
|
|---|