For a sample comprised of 36,105 U.S. firm-year observations from 1985 to 2008, we find that firms located in more religious counties enjoy cheaper equity financing costs. This result is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including alternative assumptions and model specifications,...

Motivated by recent research on the costs and benefits of political connection, we examine the cost of equity capital of politically connected firms. Using propensity score matching models, we find that politically connected firms enjoy a lower cost of equity capital than their non-connected...

Motivated by recent research on the link between geographic proximity and information risk, we examine the impact of geographic location on a firm's ownership structure and cost of equity capital using a large sample of newly privatized firms from 47 countries. We find that the greater the...