To the extent that leverage ratio acts as a proxy for the
ability of firms to issue debt one would expect a negative
relation between leverage and cash holdings. Under this
view, John (1993) hypothesizes that firms can use
borrowing as a substitute for holding high levels of cash.
Baskin (1987) argues that the cost of funds used to invest
in liquidity increases as debt financing increases, implying
a reduction in cash holdings with increased debt in capital
structure. The empirical evidence for negative relation is
found in Kim et al. (1998), Opler et al. (1999), Ferreira
and Vilea (2004), and Ozkan and Ozkan (2004). Gong
(2006) also finds this relation using Korean all firms listed
in KOSPI. On the other hand, Guney et al. (2007) argue
that a negative relation between cash holdings and
leverage at low level of leverage is expected and in turn a
positive relation at high levels of leverage will be. They
provide the evidence of this relation as non-monotonic