Jensen (1986) and Stulz (1990) develop the free cash flow hypothesis, predicting that shareholders
will choose to limit managers’ access to free cash flow to mitigate agency conflicts over its deployment.
The central tradeoff in these papers is providing sufficient internal capital for managers to efficiently fund
all good projects, while not providing excess internal capital as to allow managers to fund projects,
acquisitions or perquisite consumption that benefit managers at the expense of shareholders. Without a
control threat, it is difficult, if not impossible, to convince self-interested managers to disgorge cash
reserves to shareholders.