Impacts of Managerial Overconfidence and Agency Costs on Cash Holdings Within Blockchain Firms

Abstract

We study the effects of managerial overconfidence and agency costs on cash holdings of blockchain firms, where the overconfidence is defined as a cognitive bias that a manager will underestimate volatility in an uncertain environment. We develop a real-options game model that incorporates both overconfidence and agency costs. The theoretical results show that future investment opportunities are necessary for holding cash when agency costs are within the firm. Expected returns from blockchain projects decrease with managerial overconfidence. The level of corporate cash holdings increases with overconfidence and decreases with agency costs. Using the data of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019, we find that the regression results are consistent with our theoretical findings. Moreover, we find that the blockchain firms’ cash holdings are higher than their peers. Our results shed some light on the impacts of behavioral characteristics on cash holdings.

Keywords

• Agency costs
• blockchain
• corporate cash holdings
• managerial overconfidence