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 auto correlation 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