ARE BRAZILIAN FIRMS SAVINGS SENSITIVE TO CASH WINDFALLS?

One of the most studied topics in the corporate finance literature is the effect of financial constraints on firms' investments decisions. Trying to explain this issue, Almeida, Campello andWeisbach (2003) modeled the relationship between the financial constraints faced by firms and their demand for liquidity. They show that if one firm is financial constrained we must expect positive cash _ow sensitivity from cash windfalls, while for unconstrained firms this relation does not hold. The aim of this article is to check this proposition using annual data of 336 non-financial Brazilian public firms, from 1993 to 2002. Our results show that financial constrained Brazilian firms presented a positive relationship between cash _ow increases and variations of cash holdings. We also suggest that credit constraints in Brazil are directly related to the size of firms.