The Global CAPM and a Firm's Cost of Capital in Different Currencies

In an integrated global market, a firm's cost of capital expressed in one currency should be consistent with its cost of capital expressed in another currency. This article presents and illustrates a process for estimating consistent costs of capital in different currencies for a U.K. based multinational. In so doing, it uses a simple, easy-to-use version of the global CAPM that attempts to incorporate the effect of uncertain exchange rates by calculating exchange rate "betas." As argued in the previous article, at least part of a company's currency exposure is systematically related to the global market and thus should be treated as a component of the firm's systematic equity risk.
For example, the U.K. firm featured in this article is shown to have an exchange rate beta of 0.20 from the perspective of a U.S. investor. This implies that a 10% return on the global market in U.S. dollars tends to be associated with a 2% change in the U.S. dollar value of the British pound. One interesting consequence of incorporating exchange risk in this fashion is that two firms with identical U.S. global betas and costs of equity will have different expected returns expressed in another currency if they have different exposures to that currency.     

多元化与资本成本的关系——来自中国股票市场的证据

根据期权定价模型,多元化降低了公司风险,但其受益者是债权人,而不是股东,这使得公司部分财富从股东手中转移到债权人手中,由此降低了股东财富,因此,多元化可能并不为股东所欢迎,从而多元化公司的权益资本成本可能高于专业化公司。同时,由于内部资本市场在公司内部的资源再配置作用,使得公司降低了对融资成本较高的外部资本市场的依赖,因此,多元化经营公司的总资本成本可能低于专业化经营公司。本文以2001—2004年我国上市公司为例,对多元化与公司权益资本成本和总资本成本之间的关系进行了实证检验。研究结果表明,多元化与权益资本成本正相关,而与总资本成本负相关。     

Growth Options, Beta, and the Cost of Capital

We show how to decompose a firm's beta into its beta of assets-in-place and its beta of growth opportunities. Our empirical results demonstrate that the beta of growth opportunities is greater than the beta of assets-in-place for virtually all industries over all periods of time dating back to 1977. The difference has important implications for determining the cost of capital. For example, when choosing comparables to determine a project beta one should match the growth opportunities of the project with those of the comparable firm. Assuming a 6% market equity risk premium, accounting for growth opportunities alters the project cost of capital by as much as 2% to 3%.     

INTEGRATING RISK MANAGEMENT AND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Capital management and risk management are two sides of the same coin. But by treating them separately, the conventional theory and practice of corporate finance fails to account for important connections between them. Moreover, an exclusive focus on debt and equity ignores the full range of capital resources available to a corporation, thus distorting management's view of the firm's cost of capital (and its return on equity).
An understanding of the role of corporate capital–including off-balance sheet as well as paid-up capital—and its relationship to the riskiness of a firm's activities provides the foundation on which the author builds a corporate finance framework that ties together both the insurance and capital markets. This framework, called the "Insurative Model," captures the economics of both conventional insurance and corporate finance instruments and embraces a wide variety of solutions and instruments—be they debt, equity, insurance, derivative, contingent capital, or any other—and allows managers to evaluate their effectiveness in a consistent, unified way.
The Insurative Model demonstrates that a company's decisions on insurance and risk retention can be just as important as its decisions about its debt-equity mix. In fact, the determination of a firm's optimal debt-equity ratio should be the last in a series of capital and risk management decisions. Earlier decisions should address risk retention, risk transfer, and the optimal amounts and structure of off-balance-sheet capital used to support the company's retained risks.     

Capital Allocation in Financial Firms

This paper develops a theory of capital allocation in financial intermediaries where the cost of "risk capital" is a critical consideration. The implication for capital budgeting is that financial firms should use a modified NPV rule in which projects are valued by calculating the NPV of cash flows using marketdetermined discount rates and then subtracting a deadweight cost of capital that reflects the project's marginal contribution to firm-wide risk.
By taking account of deadweight costs—mainly monitoring and moral hazard costs associated with having too little equity capital as well as "free cash flow" agency costs and higher taxes associated with having too much—the capital allocation model predicts that financial firms will diversify across businesses with similar deadweight costs. Such diversification reduces the cost of risk capital for the individual businesses, thereby creating more profitable investment opportunities at the margin and enabling the businesses to operate on a larger scale. The authors note that their model has similarities to but also important differences from the standard applications of RAROC models.     

A NOTE ON THE MARGINAL COST OF DEBT CAPITAL

The firms marginal cost of debt capital was interpreted in this author's previous publications as the "full marginal cost of relaxing the money capital availability constraint' when the incremental money capital employed takes the form of debt capital. Account is thereby taken of the effects on financing costs of the increased risk exposure that debt financing implies for both debt and equity holders. The present paper clarifies a misconception in a recently published paper by Draper and Findlay, and exhibits the linkage between concepts relevant to the firm's fmancing decision and the general marginal analysis.     

Taxes, Leverage, and the Cost of Equity Capital

We examine the associations among leverage, corporate and investor level taxes, and the firm's implied cost of equity capital. Expanding on Modigliani and Miller [1958, 1963] , the cost of equity capital can be expressed as a function of leverage and corporate and investor level taxes. Based on this expression, we predict that the cost of equity is increasing in leverage, and that corporate taxes mitigate this leverage‐related risk premium, while the personal tax disadvantage of debt increases this premium. We empirically test these predictions using implied cost of equity estimates and proxies for the firm's corporate tax rate and the personal tax disadvantage of debt. Our results suggest that the equity risk premium associated with leverage is decreasing in the corporate tax benefit from debt. We find some evidence that the equity risk premium from leverage is increasing in the personal tax penalty associated with debt.     

Enterprise Risk Management and the Cost of Capital

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a process that manages all risks in an integrated, holistic fashion by controlling and coordinating any offsetting risks across the enterprise. This research investigates whether the adoption of the ERM approach affects firms' cost of equity capital. We restrict our analysis to the U.S. insurance industry to control for unobservable differences in business models and risk exposures across industries. We simultaneously model firms' adoption of ERM and the effect of ERM on the cost of capital. We find that ERM adoption significantly reduces firm's cost of capital. Our results suggest that cost of capital benefits are one answer to the question how ERM can create value.     

Accruals Quality, Information Risk and Cost of Capital: Evidence from Australia

Abstract:  Recent theoretical work argues that information risk is a non-diversifiable risk factor that is priced in the capital market. Using accruals quality to proxy for information risk, Francis et al. (2005) provide empirical support for this argument using a sample of US firms. This paper re-examines the interplay of accruals quality, information risk and cost of capital in Australia, where a number of important institutional and regulatory differences are hypothesized to affect the relation between accruals quality and cost of capital. The results suggest that, while accruals quality impacts on the cost of capital for Australian firms, some salient differences exist. In contrast to findings for US firms, the costs of debt and equity for Australian firms are largely influenced by accruals quality arising from economic fundamentals (i.e., innate accrual quality) but not discretionary reporting choices (i.e., discretionary accrual quality). This finding is consistent with our predictions based on the Australian institutional and regulatory environment. In addition, using both the asset pricing tests in Francis et al. (2005) and Core et al. (2008) , we provide evidence consistent with accruals quality being a priced risk factor.     

Optimization of a firm's capital structure: A quantitative approach based on a probabilistic prognosis of risk and time of bankruptcy

This article develops a new probabilistic approach to the problem of optimization of a firm's capital structure. The main idea of the approach is straightforward. As a possible firm's bankruptcy is the principal factor restricting the amount of borrowed capital, we assess the probabilities of bankruptcy at various time horizons in the future dependent on the proportion of debt capital and other indices of a firm's current financial position and then calculate how these probabilities influence the firm's value.We identify a set of factors determining conditions of existence and the value of the optimal debt/equity ratio. These include the characteristics of a firm's debt (proportion of short-term component of the debt, cost of service, and maturity horizons of long-term component), characteristics of a firm's ability to pay the debt, and some macroeconomic factors.We represent dependencies of optimal debt/equity ratio and gains in a firm's value on the main influencing factors.The approach is based on real data of real firms and does not use superfluously formalized models. We believe it can be used in practical capital structure decisions although specific calculations must be fulfilled for each firm that needs such decision.     

The Cost of Equity Capital at the Corporate and Investor Levels Allowing a Rational Expectations Model with Personal Taxations

This paper argues that the conventional definition of the cost of equity at the corporate level is likely to be fundamentally flawed under conditions of personal taxation. A 'dimensionally consistent' definition is developed utilising the pioneering contributions of Auerbach and Elton and Gruber. Consequent benefits are straight-forward expressions for the cost of equity capital at the corporate level (for both retained earnings and new equity) as well as at the investor level (post personal tax) in terms of both the dividend discount and CAPM-type models, which are applicable to classical and imputation tax systems. A fundamental framework is thereby provided which succeeds in illuminating investor pesonal tax liabilities as they might be expected to impact on a firm's investment and related dividend policies.     

全球投资者国别风险情绪对跨境股票资本流动的影响

本文分析了全球投资者国别风险情绪对跨境股票资本流动的影响,通过构造一般均衡跨期选择模型,刻画了投资者国别风险情绪负向影响跨境股票净资本流入的理论机理以及投资者风险厌恶程度的调节作用,并基于EPFR全球股票型基金微观数据和由大数据文本分析技术构造的全球投资者国别层面风险情绪指标进行实证检验。结果表明:第一,全球投资者对一国的国别风险情绪上升会推升该国的整体风险溢价水平,降低跨境股票型基金净资本流入,尤其是风险厌恶度较高的被动型、开放式和ETF基金;第二,一国金融市场成熟度上升和汇率弹性增强可以缓解全球投资者国别风险情绪对跨境股票型基金净资本流入的负向影响;第三,在全球风险情绪极端低或者各国股票型基金净资本流入极端高的时期,全球投资者国别风险情绪的影响更为显著。     

Capital Structure, Information Acquisition and Investment Decisions in an Industry Framework

This paper analyzes the relationship between a firm's capital structure and its information acquisition prior to capital budgeting decisions. It is found that low-growth industries can sustain a large number of levered firms. In these industries, leverage is negatively related to a firm's incentive to acquire information during the capital budgeting process. In contrast, high-growth industries only sustain a small number of levered firms. In these industries, levered firms acquire more information than all-equity financed firms. The model yields empirical predictions regarding the effects of leverage on the expected amount and the volatility of corporate investment. While leverage does not affect firm value, highly levered firms generate a more volatile cash flow than firms with low debt levels.     

The Rise and Evolution of the Chief Risk Officer: Enterprise Risk Management at Hydro One

This article describes the five-year implementation of enterprise risk management at Hydro One, a Canadian electric utility in a newly deregulated market. Starting with the creation of the position of Chief Risk Officer and the implementation of a pilot risk study involving one of the firm's subsidiaries, the ERM process has made use of a variety of tools and techniques, including the "Delphi Method," risk trends, risk tolerances, and risk rankings.
Among the most tangible benefits of ERM at Hydro One are (1) a better coordinated and more effective process for allocating capital and (2) a favorable reaction to the program by Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which has arguably improved the company's credit rating and lowered its cost of capital. But perhaps equally important is the company's progress in realizing the first principle of its ERM policy—namely, that "risk management is everyone's responsibility, from the Board of Directors to individual employees." As a result, Hydro One's management feels that the company is much better positioned today to respond to new business developments than it was five years ago.     

Segment Disclosure and Cost of Capital

We investigate whether segment disclosure influences cost of capital. Improved segment reporting is expected to decrease cost of capital by reducing estimation risk. However, in a competitive environment segment disclosure may also generate uncertainties about future prospects and lead to a larger cost of capital. Asset‐pricing tests confirm that segment disclosure is a priced risk factor. Also, segment disclosure reduces ex‐ante estimates of cost of equity capital and other measures connected to risk. These results suggest a negative relation between segment disclosure and cost of capital. Our results also show that competition reduces, but does not eliminate, the previous relationship.     

上市公司权益资本成本的测度与评价——基于我国证券市场的经验检验

权益资本成本(CofEC)是公司筹资和投资决策时需要考虑的重要问题。然而,如何测定公司的权益资本成本,目前尚未得出统一的结论。本文在现有研究的基础上,从事后和事前两个角度测度了我国上市公司的权益资本成本,并从经济和统计两个角度对不同的测度进行了评价。研究得出,不同方法得出的权益资本成本测度差异明显,最大差异达到了12.13%,这些差异对我国公司融资顺序(偏好)是否主要基于资本成本考虑的判断会造成重大影响。从经济角度看,事前权益资本成本测度要优于CAPM和Fama-French三因子模型下事后权益资本成本,在事前权益资本成本测度中,国内外文献中普遍运用的GLS模型下的CofEC表现不够理想,而PEG和MPEG模型下的CofEC能更好地捕捉各风险因素的影响,尽管其时间序列计量误差方差相对较大。     

Toward an Implied Cost of Capital

In this study, we propose an alternative technique for estimating the cost of equity capital. Specifically, we use a discounted residual income model to generate a market implied cost-of-capital. We then examine firm characteristics that are systematically related to this estimate of cost-of-capital. We show that a firm's implied cost-of-capital is a function of its industry membership, B/M ratio, forecasted long-term growth rate, and the dispersion in analyst earnings forecasts. Together, these variables explain around 60% of the cross-sectional variation in future (two-year-ahead) implied costs-of-capital. The stability of these long-term relations suggests they can be exploited to estimate future costs-of-capital. We discuss the implications of these findings for capital budgeting, investment decisions, and valuation research.     

人力资本投资:风险与风险规避

自美国经济学家发现人力资本对经济发展的巨大贡献以来,人们的注意力主要集中于阐述人力资本投资的高收益性,而人力资本投资的风险性却很少被论及。实现有效的人力资本投资,必须建立在充分认识人力资本投资特点的基础上,而规避人力资本投资风险的根本途径是明晰人力资本产权和建立人力资本市场。     

权益资本成本的行业特征研究

以2004~2011年沪深A股上市公司为样本,研究权益资本成本的行业差异以及行业特征对权益资本成本的影响。研究发现:行业门类层面和制造业次类层面的权益资本成本差异显著,这种差异在时序上较为稳定。行业竞争程度越低,权益资本成本越小,体现了产品市场竞争的特质性风险效应,行业收益波动和行业成长性分别对权益资本成本产生显著的正向影响和负向影响。企业会计准则的改革强化了行业因素对权益资本成本的影响。     

股权激励、管理者过度自信与权益资本成本

基于行为金融的视角,从管理者过度自信角度解释了我国股权激励计划实施效果不佳的困惑。实证结果表明,我国实施股权激励计划会在高管过度自信的条件下对上市公司权益资本成本产生影响：股权激励计划的实施提高了上市公司高管过度自信水平;股权激励与高管过度自信的相互作用使得上市公司权益资本成本显著升高。这意味着从管理者过度自信的角度考察股权激励对企业权益资本成本造成的影响,可能会更好地解释股权激励的价值效应。