This paper studies a firm's optimal capital structure in an environment, where the firm's stock price serves as a public signal for its credit worthiness. In equilibrium, equity investors choose how much information to acquire privately, which induces a positive relation between the amount of...

The implied cost of capital (ICC), the internal rate of return that equates speculative stock price to discounted expected future dividends, includes a mispricing-driven component in addition to expected return. The estimated relation of a mispricing-associated factor (X) with ICC is thus a...