An Empirical Study on Listed Company’s Value of Cash Holdings: An Information Asymmetry Perspective

Table 2

Definitions of research variables.

Variable	Definition	Calculation method
𝑟𝑖,𝑡−𝑅^𝐵𝑖,𝑡	𝑟𝑖,𝑡 is the actual rate of return in an accounting year, and 𝑅^𝐵𝑖,𝑡 is benchmark rate of return	𝑟𝑖,𝑡 is the actual annual rate of return on the stock with dividend included in the return, and 𝑅^𝐵𝑖,𝑡 is the circulation-market-value-weighted actual annual rate of return on the industry
𝐸𝑖,𝑡	Earnings
NA𝑖,𝑡	Net asset	Difference between total assets and cash assets
𝐼𝑖,𝑡	Interest expense	Measured by financial expenses
𝐷𝑖,𝑡	Common stock dividends	Measured by cash dividends
𝐶𝑖,𝑡−1	Cash at previous year end
𝐿𝑖,𝑡	Market value financial leverage	Total liabilities/total asset
NF𝑖,𝑡	Net financing	Net cash inflow from financing
High	High financial constraints	Takes 1 for the top 20% ASY values, 0 for others
Low	Low financial constraints	Takes 1 for the bottom 20% ASY values, 0 for others