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1. Introduction 介绍
现金持有量的上升，似乎是一个全球性的问题，已经成为企业金融研究中一个新兴的问题。许多人认为，拥有过多的现金可能会导致许多投资者担心的代理问题。合理确定现金持有量是管理者的一项重要决策。当一家公司有足够的现金流时，管理层面临三种选择：要么回购股份，要么支付股息以向股东分配现金；要么选择继续投资；要么保留现金以满足未来的现金需求。对于企业来说，有许多值得称赞的现金收益：当有投资机会时，持有现金可以确保企业有能力抓住各种有利可图的投资机会（凯恩斯，1936年）。持有现金给公司更大的灵活性，当公司面临融资限制时，现金可以成为一种宝贵的资产。Kim等人（1998）认为企业的现金决策依赖于外部融资成本高、持有现金收入低以及通过现金积累取得的投资收益之间的权衡。外部融资成本较高的公司更有可能面临融资限制，因此拥有更高水平的现金储备。Opler等人（1999）发现最容易进入的资本市场支持大企业和高信用等级的企业。他们很少面临融资限制，因此现金水平很低。Almeida等人（2004）认为融资约束型企业的现金储备水平对内部现金流量更为敏感，而非融资约束型企业的现金储备不依赖于内部现金流量。
The rise of cash holdings, seemingly a global issue, has become a burgeoning issue in corporate finance research. Many believe that having too much cash may cause the agency problem that concerns many investors. It is an important decision for managers to reasonably determine the level of cash holding. When a company has sufficient cash flow, management faces three options: either share buybacks or dividend payments to distribute cash to shareholders; Choose to continue to invest; Either keep the cash to meet future cash needs. For businesses, there are many commendable cash benefits: when there is an investment opportunity, holding cash can ensure that enterprises have the ability to grasp all kinds of profitable investment opportunities (Keynes, 1936). Holding cash gives companies greater flexibility, and when companies face financing constraints, cash can be a valuable asset. Kim et al. (1998) believed that the enterprise's cash decision depended on the high cost of external financing and the low income of holding cash and the tradeoff between the investment gains made by accumulating cash. Companies with higher external financing costs are more likely to face financing constraints and therefore hold higher levels of cash reserves. Opler et al. (1999) found that the most easily accessible capital markets supported enterprises with large enterprises and high credit ratings. They rarely faced financing constraints, so they held low cash levels. Almeida et al. (2004) believes that the cash reserve level of financing constraint enterprises is more sensitive to internal cash flow, rather than that the cash reserves of enterprises with financing constraints do not depend on internal cash flow.
2. The agency conflict between shareholders and managers股东与经理之间的代理冲突
当然，持有现金也会导致代理问题（Jensen，1986年）。大量的现金产生的结果有自利行为管理的随机投资行为，即使对企业的投资可能没有利润，甚至会降低企业价值，管理层也会选择投资，因为随着投资规模的增加，管理范围的权力会扩大，他们有更多的机会攫取私人利益。Dittmartal.，2003），Pinkowitz等人（2006年）、Kalcheva和Linus（2007年）利用跨国数据，研究发现金融市场不发达，国家投资者保护较差，企业现金储备水平偏高。Dittmar和Mahart Smith（2007）Harford等人（2008）利用美国企业数据研究发现，随着投资者保护水平的提高，现金持有水平也将提高。根据国外的研究文献，代理问题和融资约束是影响企业现金决策的重要因素。
Of course, holding cash also leads to agency problems (Jensen, 1986). The results of a large amount of cash makes has the self-interest behavior management of random investment behavior, even if the investment for enterprise might be no profit, even can reduce the enterprise value, management will also choose investment, because with the increase of investment scale, the power of the management scope will magnify, they have more opportunity to grab the private benefits. Dittmaretal., 2003), Pinkowitz et al. (2006), Kalcheva and Linus (2007) using cross-country data, the study found in the financial market is not developed, nations with poor investor protection, enterprise level of cash reserves on the high side. Dittmar and mahrt-smith (2007) Harford et al. (2008) use us corporate data research to find that as investor protection level increases, the level of cash holdings will also increase. According to the research literature from abroad, agency problems and financing constraints are important factors that influence the cash decision of enterprises.
Berle and Means as early as in 1932, put forward the agency problem between shareholders and managers, through the analysis of 200 non-financial companies in the United States, Berle and Means (1932) proposed the famous proposition of ownership and management separation, they think that when equity is too scattered, shareholders can significantly reduce the supervision of management ability, lead to agency problems between them. The management will configure the company's resources according to the needs of the individual, so that the company's behavior deviates from the target of maximization of shareholder value and damages the interests of shareholders. Under the premise of information asymmetry, the agent may not always act according to the target of the principal's interests, thus the agency cost is born. Jensen and Meckling (1976) divided agency costs into monitoring costs, keeping costs and residual losses. Supervision cost refers to the expenditure incurred by external shareholders to supervise the excessive consumption of managers; In order to obtain the trust of external shareholders, the agent's self-restraint expenses (e.g., reporting to the client on a regular basis, engaging in external independent audit, etc.) are called keeping costs; Other losses caused by inconsistent interests of principals and agents are residual losses. The agent theory holds that the agent has more information than the principal, and this information asymmetry will affect the effective supervision of the principal. If principals and agents are rational, they will use the contracts they have signed to maximize their wealth. The agent may take advantage of all possible opportunities to increase his wealth and even threaten the interests of his clients.
3. The excess cash leading toor worsen the agency problem
Shleife: and Vishny (1997) argues that the separation of ownership and managerial authority is the inevitable result of the agency problem, because the capital provider does not have enough power to exercise the management power, will sign a contract between the agent and the principal, the provider of resources is the client, users of resources is the agent. The agent may, according to the client's request, substitute the agent for the exercise of the management right, so the agent will have a great deal of power to allocate funds and earn personal income. Among the enterprises with relatively concentrated equity, the proxy conflict between large and small shareholders is especially serious. Large shareholders can share most of the company's cash flow because they own most of the company's shares, so they have a strong incentive to supervise the behavior of the management. The self-interest behavior of managers will be restrained, and the problem of agency between managers and shareholders will be alleviated. However, large shareholder control also produces higher agency costs. If big shareholder control of far exceed cash flow rights, or major shareholders have absolute control over enough to control enterprise, so big shareholders are likely to put the interests of the listed companies as its own tools, by manipulating the control of the board and general meeting of shareholders to increase their income, even at a departure from the company's overall goals and damage the interests of minority shareholders. At this point, large shareholders have incentives to increase cash holdings to obtain private benefits from the high cash reserves. Minority shareholders can only defend their interests by "voting with their feet" because they cannot afford the high cost of supervision. In short, in the case of asymmetric information, major shareholders have more information than the medium and small shareholders, minority shareholders is difficult to supervise large shareholder abuses of corporate control, as a result, major shareholders and small shareholders share earnings at the same time, will be extra got over ownership of the excess return, namely control private benefits.
4. The effective corporate governance mechanism/practice to alleviate these concerns
4.1. Improve the external governance mechanism of the company
Give full play to the role of investors in corporate governance mechanism. The development experience of modern joint-stock companies has shown that there are many ways to control the company's control. In many listed companies, outsiders, such as shareholders, investment funds and Banks, can play a role in the supervision and control of managers, especially in the hiring of the company's general manager. Therefore, we should give full play to the role of investors in corporate governance mechanism.To strengthen the position and role of workers in corporate governance mechanism. With the development of economy and society, the status and role of laborers have been promoted to some extent. In order to stimulate staff enthusiasm and creativity, more and more companies make the worker representatives into the company's board of directors and board of supervisors, the ways and methods of innovation workers participating in corporate governance, and take the necessary measures to protect worker rights, enhance workers in corporate governance mechanism of the status and role.#p#分页标题#e#
4.2. Improve the board system
As an agent of shareholders in corporate governance, the board of directors shall exercise its business responsibility on behalf of shareholders. As the client of internal management, exercise the responsibility of the owner and entrust the enterprise to the management of the management layer. When the board commissioned managers, not only have to be carefully screened for managers of information, reduce the negative impact of the hidden information and the execution of the contract the behavior of managers to supervise, lower managers later hidden actions and "moral hazard". It can be seen that the board system arrangement has an important influence on the management agent.
4.3. Strengthen board building
As stated earlier, in the enterprise internal control, the board range including contract, supervision, incentives and other corporate governance areas and link, the agent has the important influence to managers. The board should be strengthened to strengthen the board's function, optimize the structure of the board of directors, improve the professional quality of the board members, so as to monitor the behavior of managers and protect the interests of shareholders.
Enhance board functions. Director to set up a decision with the support of regulatory agencies and other measures, to ensure the independence of the board of directors is beneficial to strengthen the function of the board of directors, play the core role of the board of directors in the enterprise internal control, to protect the interests of the shareholders and other interest groups. For non-executive directors, should give full play to its four different roles (strategic role, performance or a supervisory role, risk role, personnel management roles), prompting executive director responsible for the decisions we make and corporate performance has, to ensure that the enterprise has adequate internal control system and risk management system, effective supervision and management agency behavior, in order to protect shareholders' interests. At present, has been set up the audit committee of listed companies, such as price committee, remuneration committee director decision support and regulatory agencies, to strengthen the function of the board of directors, to improve the enterprise internal control system.
Optimize the board structure. The empirical research shows that the size of the board and its composition are two key variables that influence the role of the board. For board size, small scale, the board plays a stronger role; On the contrary, the board of directors plays a weaker role. For the board composition, the proportion of internal directors is high, the board of directors really plays a weak role; On the contrary, the proportion of external directors is higher, and the board of directors can play a better role. You can even set up an internal director, that is, the CEO of the company, and the rest of the board hires outside directors.
Improve the professional quality of board members. Members of the board of directors must have enough professional background, professional quality, supervision ability and judgment, to be able to the enterprise internal and external environment, management, finance, etc for risk identification, risk analysis and risk assessment, and can according to the actual internal and external environment and enterprise development, makes the corresponding strategy, to try to circumvent the enterprise decision-making mistakes.
4.4. Improve the management compensation incentive system
Managers incentive system is one of the main driving force of the development of the enterprise, its purpose is to encourage managers in the process of pursuing its own interests, give full play to the enthusiasm of managers themselves, using their talents and professional skills, the pursuit of enterprise value maximization, maximizing shareholders' equity, to ensure the interests of the investors. Under the modern corporate governance system, the enterprise managers to better resolve principal-agent problems, must pay attention to long-term incentives for enterprise managers, from establishing and perfecting the science of managers incentive system, improve managers' pay structure, establish and improve the management performance evaluation, etc, to perfect the managers compensation incentive system. 6.3.1 establish and improve the scientific management incentive system.
5. Conclusion
Most of scholars in the study of cash holding decisions, would choose to study respectively the financing constraints or agency problems and the relationship between cash holdings, in fact, financing constraints and agency problem is not completely reject, the increase of the agency conflict will increase the degree of enterprise information asymmetry, and make the enterprise faced with more financing constraints. An isolated study of financial constraints or agency issues affecting corporate cash levels can lead to erroneous decisions. For cash holdings decision-making research, therefore, is very necessary to combine financing constraints and agency problems, study the interaction effect on corporate cash holdings and their value effectmay have more practical significances.
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