Navigating the capital investment through national governance in BRICS economies: the role of cash holdings

PurposeThe current analysis aims to explore the role of cash holdings in the nexus of national governance and capital investment (CIN).Design/methodology/approachTo achieve this aim, the authors sample the nonfinancial enterprises from 5 Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) economies and employ system generalized method of moments(GMM) models as an estimation technique.FindingsThe empirical analysis infers that national governance has a positive relationship with CIN and a negative relationship with cash holdings. The cash holdings negatively determine CIN. However, the cash holdings show a positive relationship with CIN in the presence of the national governance index (NGI).Research limitations/implicationsThe important policy layout of the current analysis is that corporate managers should reduce cash holdings during better governance situations. Alternatively, corporate managers can disentangle the negative impact of bad country governance conditions on CIN by holding more cash.Originality/valueThe study is innovative as it explores mediating impact of cash holdings in the NGI-CIN nexus.