In this article, we investigate the effect of local financial development on cash holdings of Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Consistent with the hypothesis that local financial development reduces the need to hold precautionary cash because it facilitates access to bank debt, we find that local financial development measured by the density of bank branches in Italian provinces has a negative effect on corporate cash holdings. This effect is driven by SMEs with bank debt. Furthermore, the negative effect of local financial development on cash holdings only exists for younger and smaller SMEs, which are more likely to benefit from increased local financial development. Our work highlights that local financial development is an important driver of policies on holding cash by SMEs and is particularly relevant during crisis periods, such as the recent COVID-19 crisis.

在本文中，我们调查了当地金融发展对意大利中小企业现金持有量的影响。与当地金融发展减少了持有预防性现金的需求这一假设相一致，因为这有助于获取银行债务，因此，我们发现，以意大利各省的银行分支机构密度衡量的本地金融发展对公司的现金持有量有负面影响。这种影响是由具有银行债务的中小企业驱动的。此外，地方金融发展对现金持有量的负面影响仅存在于年轻和规模较小的中小企业，这些中小企业更有可能受益于地方金融发展的增长。我们的工作着重指出，地方金融发展是中小型企业持有现金政策的重要驱动力，在危机时期尤为重要，