Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions (i.e., their required returns to capital) determine investment and transmit financial shocks to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how firms' discount rates change over time and affect...

Prior studies document a Delaware incorporation effect on firm valuation, generally using Tobin's Q, but the directional effects are mixed and inconclusive. Our study uses implied cost of equity to assess valuation, and we find consistent evidence that firms incorporated outside of their home...

Prior studies document a Delaware incorporation effect on firm valuation, generally using Tobin's Q, but the directional effects are mixed and inconclusive. Our study uses implied cost of equity to assess valuation, and we find consistent evidence that firms incorporated outside of their home...

This paper investigates the impact of the corporate life cycle on the cost of equity capital. Using a sample of Australian firms during the years 1990–2012, we find that the proxies for the cost of equity capital vary across the life cycle of the firm. In particular, we find that the cost of...

We investigate cost of capital, information asymmetry, and market liquidity of listed family firms vs. non-family firms in Japan. First, we find that the cost of debt is lower and the cost of equity is higher for family firms than non-family firms, but the differences are not significant. The...

We examine the relation between firm reputation and the cost of debt financing. We posit that corporate reputation represents “soft information” not captured by balance sheet variables, which is nonetheless valuable to lenders. Using Fortune magazine's survey of company reputation while...

In empirical tests guided by recent theory (e.g., Hughes, Liu and Liu 2007; and Lambert, Leuz and Verrecchia 2011), we examine the joint effects of information precision, information asymmetry and the level of market competition on firms' cost of equity capital. Consistent with theory, we find that...

We study the quoting activity of market makers in relation to trading, liquidity, and expected returns. Empirically, we find larger quote-to-trade (QT) ratios in small, illiquid or neglected firms, yet large QT ratios are associated with low expected returns. The last result is driven by quotes,...

We investigate whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) and investors price the extent to which municipal bond ratings are explainable using public information. We use an ordinal logistic regression to estimate the expected and unexpected portions of bond ratings, and find that both CRA fees and...

The objective of this paper was to analyze the effect of competition over better information on the cost of equity capital of Brazilian firms that trade their shares at the BM&FBovespa. The theoretical framework used models to analyze the expectations equilibrium when the information is not...