The results for the US appear at first to be inconsistent with the results from international studies—namely,
that as shareholder rights increase, cash balances decrease. However, we believe that these results help us
understand how country-level shareholder rights interact with firm-level agency problems and shareholder
power. The US scores highly on shareholder rights and rule of law indices, indicating that it has both high
legal protection of shareholder rights and strong enforcement of those rights. This implies that in such a
setting even entrenched managers are not as entrenched as their counterparts in countries with less legal
protection of minority shareholders. Thus, while fewer firm-level shareholder rights are indicative of an agency
problem and relatively more entrenched management in the US, this does not mean that the managers are
unassailable. Large, unused cash balances are too visible an indicator and could lead to shareholder agitation
(as in the case of Kirk Kerkorian and Chrysler). Faleye (2004) shows that proxy contests are increasing in
excess cash reserves and that managers often lose their jobs following such contests. Thus, managers would
prefer to convert the cash into real assets relatively quickly. Even if these transactions destroy value, to the
extent that they are within the bounds of the cost of removing the management, the managers can successfully
execute them. Further, evidence in Bliss and Rosen (2001) and Harford and Li (2007) establishes that CEO
compensation and wealth increase after acquisitions, even if those acquisitions destroy value. Given these
incentives and the potential penalty from accumulating large cash reserves, weakly controlled managers
choose to spend the cash quickly on acquisitions and capital expenditures, rather than hoard it.