I provide an overview of the topics covered in this Special Issue of the Journal of Corporate Finance on “Financial Flexibility and Corporate Liquidity.” This burgeoning literature encompasses studies of the determinants and consequences of corporate cash holdings, as well as the impact of flexibility considerations on corporate capital structure and payout policies. The papers published in this special issue make important contributions to this literature and point towards several promising areas for future research.

We empirically examine earnout contracts, which provide for contingent payments in acquisition agreements. Our analysis reveals considerable heterogeneity in the potential size of the earnout, the performance measure on which the contingent payment is based, the period over which performance is measured, the form of payment for the earnout, and the overall sensitivity of earnout payment to target performance. Our tests of the determinants of contract terms yield support for the view that earnouts are structured to minimize the costs of valuation uncertainty and moral hazard in acquisition negotiations.