When examining if these differences are reflected in future profitability, we find a positive relation between
shareholder rights and profitability. While both a firm’s cash position and its governance affect future
profitability, the results show little in the way of an incremental effect of the interaction of the two on future
profitability. Finally, when examining valuation effects, we find that weaker governance structures are negatively related to firm value and that this relation is more pronounced when combined with excess cash
holdings. While low insider ownership is also negatively related to firm value, the presence of excess cash does
not exacerbate the relation. While the effect of these spending decisions on value and profitability is weak, on
net, we interpret our results, especially in the context of results elsewhere in the literature, as indicating that the
spending decisions of poorly governed firms with excess cash are suboptimal.