We document that firms run by female executives are associated with a significantly greater value for their cash holdings. In these firms, the marginal value of one dollar is 1.39, while the comparable value is 0.90 for male managed firms. Further, the marginal value of cash holdings for firms run by female CEOs (CFOs) is 1.56 (1.47) compared to 0.94 (0.91) for firms with male CEOs (CFOs). The significant difference in the value of cash holdings may be attributed to the gender-based female executives’ traits that permeate a myriad of corporate decisions with superior outcomes that cumulatively manifest in the market assigning a higher value to cash holdings by these firms. The effect is more pronounced in firms with any of the following characteristics: financially unconstrained, cash distributing, weak governance, low institutional investors’ monitoring, and low audit quality. Adding another new dimension to the literature, we show that corporate culture is a potential determinant of the value of cash holdings. Specifically, we document that female led firms are associated with a more salubrious corporate environment manifesting in a greater value assigned to corporate cash holdings. Our results are robust to a battery of robustness tests.

This study examines the effect of policy uncertainty on corporate debt maturity structure. We find that elevated levels of policy uncertainty lead firms to shorten debt maturity, indicating that firms become more cautious to committing to long-term debt obligations and is suggestive of increased risk aversion during high policy uncertainty periods. However, not all firms react similarly. In contrast to Myers' (1977) prediction, high growth firms lengthen debt maturity during high policy uncertainty periods. The evidence regarding the relationship between debt maturity and credit quality is not non-monotonic as firms with highest and lowest credit quality diverge in terms of debt maturity when policy uncertainty is elevated. Further, larger firms increase their debt maturity, while financially-constrained firms and firms with greater exposure to domicile political environment obtain short-term debt. The results are robust to a battery of tests including the use of instrument variable and placebo analysis.