We now proceed to motivate the dynamic model. The static cash holding model
frequently used in previous research implicitly assumes that firms can instantaneously
adjust towards the target cash level following changes in firm-specific characteristics
and/or random shocks. In this paper, we adopt an approach recognising that an
adjustment process may take place, involving a lag in adjusting to changes in the target
cash structure. The possibility of delays in the adjustment process can be justified
by the existence of transaction and other adjustment costs, causing the current cash
structure not to be immediately adjusted to a new desired cash structure (for a discussion
in a capital structure context see, e.g., Myers (1984) and Fischer et al. (1989)). We
investigate these issues by modelling the firm’s behaviour as a partial adjustment to a
target cash ratio, which is explained in the Appendix A. Accordingly, we report estimates
of the following dynamic panel data specification: