What are the economic determinants of a firm's market value? We answer this question through the lens of a generalized neoclassical model of investment with physical capital, quasi-fixed labor, and two types of intangible capital, knowledge and brand capital as inputs. We estimate the structural...

We demonstrate, using data for the period 1954-2003, that differences in exposure to consumption risk explains cross sectional differences in average excess returns (cost of equity capital) across the 25 benchmark equity portfolios constructed by Fama and French (1993). We use yearly returns on...

How does a firm in one country evaluate an investment in a firm in another country, or how does it evaluate a foreign project that the firm itself is undertaking? The firm must estimate future free cash flows just as in a domestic project, but choosing an appropriate discount rate is a...

Costs of equity for individual firms are estimated in a Bayesian framework using several factor-based pricing models. Substantial prior uncertainty about mispricing often produces an estimated cost of equity close to that obtained with mispricing precluded, even for a stock whose average return...

We examine the differential impact of portfolio debt, portfolio equity, and FDI inflows on 37 manufacturing industries, 99 countries, 1991-2007, extending Rajan-Zingales (1998). We utilize external finance dependence measures in a series of cross-sectional regressions of manufacturing...

We show that firms with the least elastic demand for equity capital should benefit the most from reductions in shareholder taxes. Consistent with this prediction, we find that, following 1997 and 2003 cuts in U.S. individual shareholder taxes, financially constrained firms, and particularly...

This paper considers the financing of investment in the presence of asymmetric information between the 'insiders' and the 'outsiders' of the firms in a small open economy. It establishes a well-defined capital structure for the economy as a whole with the following features: low-productivity...

Government guarantees of private debt deplete equity. The depletion is greatest during periods when the probability of a guarantee payoff is highest. In a setting otherwise subject to Modigliani-Miller neutrality, firms issue guaranteed debt up to the limit the government permits. Declines in...

This paper examines the extent to which investment financing and market-timing explanations motivate public equity offers. We consider a sample of 16,958 initial public offerings and 12,373 seasoned equity offerings from 38 countries between 1990 and 2003. We provide estimates of the change in...

This paper models a firm's rollover risk generated by conflict of interest between debt and equity holders. When the firm faces losses in rolling over its maturing debt, its equity holders are willing to absorb the losses only if the option value of keeping the firm alive justifies the cost of...