CEO Age, CEO Tenure, and Corporate Cash Holdings: The Moderating Effect of CEO Internalization

CEO年齡、CEO任期與企業現金持有：CEO內部化的調節效果

研究目的：CEO年齡與任期對企業現金持有的影響。
研究設計/方法：使用兩階段迴歸模型(2SLS)以解決內生性問題。
研究結果：CEO年齡(任期)與現金持有存在負(正)相關，觀察期效果和任期門檻對現金持有的影響為正，CEO內部化對觀察期效果有負面調節作用，對任期門檻無影響。
研究限制/啟發：台灣個人資料保護法規定不強制公開CEO年齡，我們花超過三年以上透過各種管道，收集到88.74%的CEO年齡與任期數據。
理論/實務/社會意涵：CEO年齡和任期可預測現金持有，監管較少的內部化CEO可調節CEO年齡與任期的影響，建議透過外部監督與更嚴格公司治理加強投資者保護。
創見/價值：手動收集CEO年齡和任期數據，填補了此領域研究的空白，據我們理解，此篇是首篇探討台灣上市公司CEO年齡與任期對現金持有影響研究。

Purpose–The aim of this study is to examine the impacts of CEO age and CEO tenure on the cash holdings of firms.
Design/methodology/approach–To address the endogeneity of CEO age and tenure, we use a two-stage panel regression model (2SLS) using the instrumental variables for running the regression of CEO age or/and tenure in the first stage.
Findings–There is a negative association between CEO age and cash holdings, and a positive correlation between CEO tenure and cash holdings. The effects of observation period and threshold tenure on cash holdings are all significant and positive, indicating that CEOs deliberately obscure their high risk-taking attitude during the initial observation periods and when a CEO’s tenure approaches tenure threshold. CEO internalization has a negative moderating effect on the observation period but no significant effect on the tenure threshold.
Research limitations/implications–Under the Personal Data Protection Law in Taiwan, it is not necessary to disclose the age of a CEO. Through various channels and over more than three years, we managed to gather 88.74% of the data on CEOs' ages and tenures.
Practical implications/Social implications–Our findings suggest that CEO age and tenure can predict cash holdings. The internalization of CEOs with minimal supervision moderates the effects of CEO age and tenure. We recommend stronger investor protection through external oversight and stricter corporate governance.
Originality/value–The main contribution of our study is the collection of CEO age and tenure data through manual methods addressing a gap in research on this topic. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effects of CEO age and CEO tenure on cash holdings from listed firms in Taiwan for the period 2010 to 2019.