z-statistic in brackets. ***, ** and * denote significance at the 1, 5 and 10 per cent levels, respectively. Sargan test is a test of over-identifying restrictions distributed asymptotically under null hypothesis of validity of instruments such as chi-squared. Degrees of freedom in brackets. m2 is a test for second-order serial autocorrelation in residuals in first differences, distributed asymptotically as N(0,1) under null hypothesis of no serial correlation. In column 1, the dependent variable is CASH1 and in column 2 is CASH2 . AQ_DD is an inverse proxy of accruals quality; GROWP measures growth options; SIZE is firm size; LTDEBT is long-term leverage; BANKD is bank debt; RSPREAD is opportunity cost of keeping cash; LEV is leverage; LIQ is investment in other liquid assets; CFLOW is cash flows; ZSCORE is the probability of financial distress; DIV is a dummy variable which takes value 1 if firms distribute dividends, and 0 otherwise. Both regressions have been estimated using two-stage generalized method of moments estimator