Investor sentiment and firm capital structure

We provide novel evidence of the role of investor sentiment in determining firms' capital structure decisions from three perspectives: leverage ratio, debt maturity and leverage target adjustment. We find that when investor sentiment is high, firms increase their leverage ratios, supporting our contention that high investor sentiment increases firms' debt capacity and facilitates the use of an aggressive leverage policy. Debt maturity is shorter in high sentiment periods, implying that firms are confident about future earnings and use shorter debt maturity to signal their financial solvency. Leverage target adjustment is slower in low sentiment periods, indicating higher costs of external finance. Furthermore, the sentiment-leverage relationship sensitivity is greater for financially constrained firms. Our extended analysis determines that leverage-increasing firms generate lower stock returns subsequent to a period of high sentiment, offering practical insights into the economic consequences of increasing leverage in high sentiment periods on corporate value for investors. Our research advances the understanding of the impact of investor sentiment on firms' financing decisions and stock returns.     

Boards,CEO entrenchment,and the cost of capital

Existing research on chief executive officer (CEO) turnover focuses on CEO ability. This paper argues that board ability is also important. Corporate boards are reluctant to replace CEOs, as this makes financing expensive by sending a negative signal about board ability. Entrenchment in this model does not result from CEO power, or from agency problems. Entrenchment is mitigated when there are more assets-in-place relative to investment opportunities. The paper also compares public and private equity. Private ownership eliminates CEO entrenchment, but market signals improve investment decisions. Finally, the model implies that board choice in publicly listed firms will be conservative.     

Information disclosure,firm growth,and the cost of capital

We study how information disclosure affects the cost of equity capital and investor welfare in a dynamic setting. We show that a firm’s cost of capital decreases (increases) in the precision of public disclosure if the firm’s growth rate is below (above) a certain threshold. The threshold growth rate is higher when the firm’s cash flows are more persistent, or when other firms in the economy are growing at low rates. While current shareholders always prefer maximum public disclosure, future shareholders’ welfare decreases (increases) in the precision of public disclosure if the firm’s growth rate is below (above) the threshold.     

Accounting-based downside risk,cost of capital,and the macroeconomy

We hypothesize that earnings downside risk, capturing the expectation for future downward operating performance, contains distinct information about firm risk and varies with cost of capital in the cross section of firms. Consistent with the validity of the earnings downside risk measure, we find that, relative to low earnings downside risk firms, high earnings downside risk firms experience more negative operating performance over the subsequent period, are more sensitive to downward macroeconomic states, and are more strongly linked to earnings attributes and other risk-related measures from prior research. In line with our prediction, we also find that earnings downside risk explains variation in firms’ cost of capital, and that this link between earnings downside risk and cost of capital is incremental to several earnings attributes, accounting and risk factor betas, return downside risk, default risk, earnings volatility, and firm fundamentals. Overall, this study contributes to accounting research by demonstrating the key valuation and risk assessment roles of earnings downside risk derived from firms’ financial statements, also shedding new light on the link between accounting and the macroeconomy.     

Property crime,earnings variability,and the cost of capital

We show that firms located in states where property crime is more prevalent have more uncertain earnings and higher financing costs. Specifically, firms located in states with higher property crime rates have more volatile and less persistent earnings as well as lower quality analysts' earnings forecasts. Firms located in states with higher property crime rates also have a higher cost of equity and debt capital. These results are robust to accounting for econometric and endogeneity concerns in various ways. Overall, our results suggest that a potentially large and overlooked cost of crime is a higher cost of capital.     

Investor protection and capital structure: International evidence

Institutions, environments, and firm characteristics are important determinants of capital structure. From a sample of firms across 45 countries, we find that investor protection plays an important role in the determinants of capital structure: firms in countries with better creditor protection have higher leverage, while firms in countries where shareholder rights are better protected use more equity funds. The other differences in institutions and environments also explain the cross-sectional variation in the aggregate capital structure across counties. Furthermore, firm characteristics identified by previous studies, as correlated in a cross-section with capital structure in developed markets, are similarly correlated in the present sample of countries. The evidence presented herein indicates that institutional differences are as important as firm characteristics in determining capital structure.     

Voluntary disclosure,mandatory disclosure and the cost of capital

We examine the association between a firm's cost of capital and its voluntary and mandatory disclosures. We include two types of mandatory disclosure: those that are a function of periodic reports that are realizations of ex‐ante reporting systems and those that arise due to specific corporate events. To capture a firm's voluntary and event‐driven mandatory disclosures, we use information the firm provides via 8K filings. To capture periodic mandatory disclosures, we use earnings quality measures derived from the literature. Consistent with endogenous relations predicted by theory, we find that voluntary disclosure and both types of mandatory disclosure are correlated, although only event‐driven mandatory disclosures are significant in models that explain voluntary disclosure. We also find that the cost of capital is generally influenced by each of these disclosure types. We also find that controlling for periodic mandatory disclosure does not affect the relationship between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital, while controlling for event‐driven mandatory disclosure sometimes affects the relationship depending on the measures used. Our study suggests that a firm's disclosure environment includes the three types of disclosure examined, although the inclusion of mandatory disclosures does not affect the measured association between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital.     

The impact of international listings on risk : Implications for capital market integration

In this paper, we examine the impact of international listing on common-stock risk. While previous research has used event study methodology, our research focuses on permanent shifts in risk. Different measures of risk are estimated to test for intertemporal shifts in risk attributable to an overseas listing. No significant shifts in risk from international listing are documented. The results are robust with respect to the location and year of listing. These findings suggest that: (1) markets are already reasonably well integrated; or (2) listing is an ineffective mechanism for reducing segmentation.     

Inventory investment and the cost of capital

We examine the relation between inventory investment and the cost of capital in the time series and the cross section. We find consistent evidence that risk premiums, rather than real interest rates, are strongly negatively related to future inventory growth at the aggregate, industry, and firm levels. The effect is stronger for firms in industries that produce durables rather than nondurables, exhibit greater cyclicality in sales, require longer lead times, and are subject to more technological innovation. We then construct a production-based asset pricing model with two types of capital, fixed capital and inventories, to explain these empirical findings. Convex adjustment costs and a countercyclical price of risk lead to negative time series and cross-sectional relations between expected returns and inventory growth.     

Customer satisfaction and the cost of capital

Using a sample of U.S. firms from 1995 through 2015 and the customer satisfaction scores from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, we find strong evidence that firms with higher customer satisfaction scores enjoy lower cost of equity capital, even after controlling for other factors that determine the cost of equity. In addition, results from a propensity score matched sample analysis, a difference-in-differences analysis, and instrumental variable regressions suggest that our findings are robust to accounting for endogeneity. We also document that customer satisfaction is positively related to investor recognition and financial report quality. The effect of customer satisfaction on the cost of equity increases with the level of information asymmetry, consistent with customer satisfaction mitigating information asymmetry. Overall, our findings suggest that customer satisfaction lowers a firm’s risk and significantly attenuates its financing costs.

     

Dividend change announcements,ROE, and the cost of equity capital

We hypothesize and present strong evidence that dividend increases (decreases) result in a general decrease (increase) in the opportunity cost of equity capital (K_e), measured by the discount rate implicit in analysts' forecasts. Estimates of K_e obtained from analyst forecast data likely capture priced information risk that is not reflected in cost of equity capital estimates customarily obtained from empirical excess returns data. In the presence of a full menu of control variables, our measured changes in the cost of equity capital are shown to provide high explanatory power for the market reaction to dividend change announcements. We also hypothesize and demonstrate that the impact of dividend changes on the cost of equity is conditional on how preannouncement K_e relates to preannouncement return on equity (ROE). Specifically, dividend increases result in a reduction in the cost of equity capital only when currently experienced ROE < K_e. This is consistent with shareholders preferring earnings to be reinvested by managers to earn a higher rate than their opportunity rate. When ROE > K_e, on the other hand, the cost of equity capital actually increases. For dividend decreases, the cost of equity capital increases only when ROE > K_e, consistent with firms currently experiencing positive economic income using dividend cuts to signal anticipated permanent earnings declines. Together with extensive robustness tests, our results indicate that dividend changes significantly affect shareholder value, contrary to the longstanding dividend irrelevance argument.     

Practitioners' perspectives on the UK cost of capital

The aims of this study were to determine how UK finance practitioners derive and review the cost of capital, and to ascertain whether the final figure varied with the choice of method. To investigate behaviour in the real world a survey questionnaire was employed, eliciting responses from the finance directors of 193 UK quoted firms. The results suggest that the cost of capital calculation is subject to wide variation across firms, both with regard to the overall figure and the precise computation of its components. The intuitive appeal of the WACC and CAPM approaches appears to ensure their continued popularity in the real world. However, firms tend not to make all of the adjustments to the overall figure which academics might expect, only making simple adjustments for risk and the tax advantage to debt. The after-tax money cost of capital which is approximately 10%, is influenced by the choice of method, and firms do not appear to revise their overall cost figure rapidly in response to the environment. The cost of capital decision is of such strategic importance for the longer-term maintenance and expansion of firm value that it is nearly always made within the domain of the board of directors.     

Stock splits, trading continuity, and the cost of equity capital

We hypothesize that managers use stock splits to attract more uninformed trading so that market makers can provide liquidity services at lower costs, thereby increasing investors’ trading propensity and improving liquidity. We examine a large sample of stock splits and find that, consistent with our hypothesis, the incidence of no trading decreases and liquidity risk is lower following splits, implying a decline in latent trading costs and a reduced cost of equity capital. Further, split announcement returns are correlated with the improvements in both liquidity levels and liquidity risk. Our analysis suggests nontrivial economic benefits from liquidity improvements, with less liquid firms benefiting more from stock splits.     

SEC Regulation Fair Disclosure,information, and the cost of capital

Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Reg FD”), adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2000 was intended to stop the practice of “selective disclosure”, in which companies give material information only to a few analysts and institutional investors prior to disclosing it publicly. Our analysis shows that the adoption of Reg FD caused a significant shift in analyst attention, resulting in a welfare loss for small firms, which now face a higher cost of capital. The loss of the “selective disclosure” channel for information flows could not be compensated for via other information transmission channels. This effect was more pronounced for firms communicating complex information and, consistent with the investor recognition hypothesis, for those losing analyst coverage. Moreover, we find no significant relationship of the different responses with litigation risks and agency costs. Our cross-sectional results suggest that Reg FD had unintended consequences and that “information” in financial markets may be more complicated than current finance theory admits.     

Social disclosure, financial disclosure and the cost of equity capital

We test the relation between financial and social disclosure and the cost of equity capital for a sample of Canadian firms with year-ends in 1990, 1991 and 1992. We find that, consistent with prior research, the quantity and quality of financial disclosure is negatively related to the cost of equity capital for firms with low analyst following. Contrary to expectations, there is a significant positive relation between social disclosures and the cost of equity capital. This positive relationship is mitigated among firms with better financial performance. We consider some biases in social disclosures that may explain this result. We also note that social disclosures may benefit the firm through its effect on organizational stakeholders other than equity investors.     

Terminal valuations, growth rates and the implied cost of capital

We develop a model based on the notion that prices lead earnings, allowing for a simultaneous estimation of the implied growth rate and the cost of equity capital for US industrial sectors. The major difference between our approach and that in prior literature is that ours avoids the necessity to make assumptions about terminal values and consequently about future growth rates. In fact, growth rates are an endogenous variable, which is estimated simultaneously with the implied cost of equity capital. Since we require only 1-year-ahead forecasts of earnings and no assumptions about dividend payouts, our methodology allows us to estimate ex ante aggregate growth and risk premia over a larger sample of firms than has previously been possible. Our estimate of the risk premium being between 3.1 and 3.9 % is at the lower end of recent estimates, reflecting the inclusion of these short-lived companies. Our estimate of the long run growth is from 4.2 to 4.7 %.     

Shareholder rights, financial disclosure and the cost of equity capital

This study extends research into whether shareholder rights and disclosures of financial-related attributes are associated with firms' costs of equity capital. Using cost-of-equity-capital estimates derived from expected earnings growth valuation models, we find that firms with stronger shareholder rights regimes and higher levels of financial transparency are associated with significantly lower costs of equity capital. We also find evidence that greater financial disclosure and stronger rights regimes interact in reducing firms' costs of equity capital, such that the effect of a high level of one mechanism is minimal when it is combined with a low level of the other. Finally, we document that neither factor dominates the other in their associations, and that there are tradeoffs between disclosure levels and shareholder rights in their influence on firms' implied costs of equity capital. JEL Classification G30 · M10     

Coupon and tax effects on new and seasoned bond yields and the measurement of the cost of debt capital

A model of the tax structure of interest rates is developed and simple approximate expressions relating yield to coupon are derived. The effect on these simple expressions of alternative assumptions about holding period length, expectations of future interest rates, and other factors, is evaluated. It is shown that with recent U.S. yield averages the new-seasoned yield spread varies with the new-seasoned coupon spread as the theory prescribes. It is concluded that new issue yield averages should provide a more reliable measure of the cost of debt capital than is provided by seasoned yield averages.     

Conditional conservatism and cost of capital

We empirically test the association between conditional conservatism and cost of equity capital. Conditional conservatism imposes stronger verification requirements for the recognition of economic gains than economic losses, resulting in earnings that reflect losses faster than gains. This asymmetric reporting of gains and losses is predicted to lower firm cost of equity capital by increasing bad news reporting precision, thereby reducing information uncertainty (Guay and Verrecchia 2007) and the volatility of future stock prices (Suijs 2008). Using standard asset-pricing tests, we find a significant negative relation between conditional conservatism and excess average stock returns over the period 1975–2003. This evidence is corroborated by further tests on the association between conditional conservatism and measures of implied cost of capital derived from analysts’ forecasts.     

Advertising intensity,investor recognition,and implied cost of capital

The main purpose of this paper is to test Merton’s (J Finance 42(3):483–510, 1987) hypothesis that better investor recognition is correlated with lower expected returns. We measure investor recognition with the firms’ advertising intensity and offer consistent evidence that higher advertising intensity is associated with lower implied cost of capital, as derived from Value Line target prices and dividend forecasts. Investor recognition plays an important role in attracting investors, improving liquidity, and ultimately reducing the cost of capital. The findings shed light on the capital market implications of advertising expenditures and complement the extant research on investor recognition.