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This paper aims to examine the sequential effect of cost of equity capital and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure with family ownership as a moderating variable.

This empirical study examines samples of manufacturing firm in Indonesia using multiple regression analysis.

Firms with high cost of equity capital in previous years have extensive CSR disclosure level. Further, firms with extensive CSR disclosure get benefit of lower cost of equity capital in the following year. Family ownership weakens the effect of previous years cost of equity capital on CSR disclosure. On the other hand, family ownership does not moderate the effect of CSR disclosure on the cost of equity capital.

This study has limitations in terms of CSR measurement using keywords which may not include overall reporting contents. This study also excludes information in sustainability reports and websites, images and scanned files that may provide additional information about the company’s social and environmental activities. This study is limited in terms of the generalization aspect because it only examines firms in one type of industry in one country over three years’ period.

This study provides empirical evidence on the sequential effect of cost of equity capital and CSR disclosure with family ownership as moderating variable from an emerging market context, which has been rarely explored in the previous research.

This study aims to analyze whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) report characteristics, including disclosure level and external assurance, and reporting firms’ CSR performance, explain variation in cost of equity capital among CSR disclosers.

The study uses a propensity score matched sample of CSR reports prepared according to the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G3/G3.1 Reporting Guidelines.

Overall, there does not appear to be a difference in cost of equity capital among CSR disclosers based on GRI disclosure level. The exception is for poor CSR performers reporting at the highest GRI disclosure levels, but not obtaining assurance. These firms may be suspected of greenwash and therefore have higher cost of equity capital than the reference group. Poor CSR performers, especially those reporting at the highest GRI disclosure levels, obtain the greatest cost of equity capital benefit associated with external assurance.

This study contributes to the literature by showing that the cost of equity capital benefits associated with CSR disclosure and assurance do not accrue equally to all CSR disclosers. Specifically, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the cost of equity capital consequences of suspected greenwashing and empirically demonstrate the role of external assurance in mitigating greenwashing concerns among poor performers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of certain audit quality attributes, namely auditor size, auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure on a client firm's cost of equity capital.

The paper uses empirical data to construct a measure of ex ante cost of equity capital for each firm and year using analyst forecasts. Independent audit quality measures used are auditor size, auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure. Firm cost of equity capital is regressed against the three independent variables and appropriate control variables.

The paper finds that auditor size (auditor is a member of the BigX), auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure are negatively associated with the client firm's cost of equity capital. However, the paper finds that this effect is limited only to small client firms, potentially reflecting the poor information environment associated with such firms.

The study highlights the importance of audit quality attributes in determining the firm's cost of capital. It also highlights ways in which firms (especially small firms) can reduce the cost of equity capital by improving their information environment through the judicious selection of auditors.

This is believed to be the first paper to examine whether the effects of three audit quality attributes (auditor size, auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure) on a firm's cost of capital are dependent on the client's size. The paper empirically shows that such effects are more pronounced for smaller clients.

This paper aims to investigate whether audit committee ownership (consisting of both equity holdings and option holdings) is associated with the cost of equity capital.

This paper uses regression analysis to examine the association between audit committee ownership and the cost of equity capital. The data set consists of 2,825 firm-year observations for companies listed on the ASX between 2001 and 2015. This paper also conducts tests to explore the mediating effects of financial reporting quality, firm performance and the risk of reporting problems, on the relation between audit committee ownership and cost of equity capital.

The analyses reveal that audit committee ownership reduces the firm’s cost of equity and, thereby, support the incentive alignment view. However, the association is driven primarily by audit committee equity ownership, with option holdings having an insignificant effect. This paper also finds that firm performance mediates the association between audit committee ownership and the cost of equity capital.

Findings of the existing corporate governance research relating to the cost of equity capital and audit committee ownership remain sparse in the context of “comply-or-explain” types of regulatory environment, like that of Australia. The findings indicate that principle-based discretionary governance arrangements, e.g. compensating audit committee members with company equity, may bring benefits to firms in terms of cheaper financing. Regulators, scholars and practitioners are invited to consider further the comprehensive implications of the structure and transparency of audit committee incentives on the effective functioning of security markets.

The effects of audit committee ownership on the cost of equity capital are an issue of direct economic consequence for equity investors. The main finding of this study, namely, that a firm with higher audit committee share ownership is likely to benefit from a lower cost of equity capital, therefore adds value to the limited extant literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether managerial ownership affects the association between shareholder rights and the cost of equity capital.

Prior literature has shown that strong shareholder rights are associated with a lower level of cost of equity capital. This paper empirically tests the interaction between managerial ownership and shareholder rights on affecting the cost of equity capital, using Gompers et al.'s governance score and Ohlson and Juettner‐Nauroth's estimate of cost of equity capital. To mitigate the endogeneity arising from other governance variables affecting both shareholder rights and the cost of equity capital, the paper adopts both OLS and two‐stage regression.

The results indicate that managerial ownership aligns managers' interests with those of shareholders, leading to a lesser degree of agency problems and lower cost of equity capital. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that managerial ownership could substitute for shareholder rights in affecting the cost of equity capital, making strong shareholder rights less important in a high managerial ownership setting.

Findings in this paper suggest that firms need to consider the interaction between managerial ownership and shareholder rights in designing their governance structure to minimize their cost of equity capital.

This paper reveals the interaction between two major governance variables in affecting firm valuation.

This paper provides a quantitative review of the literature on the repercussions of idiosyncratic information on firms’ cost of equity (CoE) capital. In total, I review the results of 113 unique studies examining the CoE effects of information Quantity, Precision and Asymmetry. My results suggest that the association between firm-specific information and CoE is subject to moderate effects. First, the link between Quantity and CoE is moderated by disclosure types and country-level factors in that firms in comparatively weakly regulated countries tend to enjoy up to four times greater CoE benefits from more expansive disclosure—depending on the type of disclosure—than firms in strongly regulated markets. Second, a negative relationship between Precision and CoE is only significant in studies using non-accrual quality proxies for Precision and risk factor-based (RFB)/valuation model-based (VMB) proxies for CoE. Third, almost all VMB studies confirm the positive association between Asymmetry and CoE, but there is notable variation in the conclusions reached when ex post CoE measurers are used.

There has been an ongoing call from various groups of stakeholders for social and environmental practices to be integrated into companies’ operations. A number of companies have responded by engaging in socially and environmentally responsible activities, while others choose not to participate in these activities, which incur additional costs. The absence of consensus regarding the economic implications of social and environmental practices provides the impetus for this paper. This study aims to examine the association between corporate social and environmental practices (CSEP) and the cost of equity capital measured by four ex ante measures using a sample of UK listed companies.

First, we undertake a review of the extant literature on CSEP. Second, using a sample of 236 companies surveyed in “Britain’s most admired companies” in terms of “community and environmental responsibility” during the period 2010-2014, we estimate four implied a cost of equity capital proxies. The relationship between a companies’ cost of equity capital and its CSEP is then calculated.

The authors find evidence that companies with higher levels of CSEP have a lower cost of equity capital. This finding determines the significant role played by CSEP in helping users to make useful decisions. Also, it supports arguments that firms with socially responsible practices have lower risk and higher valuation.

The finding encourages companies to be more socially and environmentally responsible. Furthermore, it provides up-to-date evidence of the economic consequences of CSEP. The results should, therefore, be of interest to managers, regulators and standard-setters charged with developing regulations to control CSEP, as these practices are still undertaken on a voluntary basis by companies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the association between CSEP of British companies and their cost of equity capital. The study complements Ghoul et al. (2011), who examine the relationship between CSR and the cost of equity capital of the US sample. The authors extend Ghoul et al. (2011) by using a sample of the UK market after applying International Financial Reporting Standards.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance and cost of equity capital for a set of Spanish firms.

The paper focuses on five board characteristics that have received widespread attention in corporate governance literature (board independence, board size, existence of both audit and nomination/remuneration committees, CEO duality, and independence of board committees) in order to construct a summary corporate governance measure for each firm. Then, by using regression analysis, it examines whether higher governance quality is associated with a lower cost of equity capital.

The results show that stronger governance firms have a lower cost of equity capital with respect to firms with weaker governance, even after controlling for differences in Fama and French's risk factors (i.e. beta, size and market‐to‐book).

The dependent variable, i.e. the cost of equity capital, is an unobservable measure and, as such, it has to be estimated. Therefore, the results can be sensitive to the estimation method chosen.

There is a growing literature showing that corporate governance enhances firm valuation. However, these studies typically assume that corporate governance affects firm valuation by reducing expropriation by insiders and improving the expected cash flows that can be distributed to shareholders. Whether those mechanisms also affect the other determinant of firm value – i.e. the cost of equity capital – remains largely unknown. Moreover, there is no evidence of this issue for the case of Spain.

It is hoped that the results from the paper will provide additional information concerning corporate governance to interested parties.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cost of equity capital for foreign firms listed in the US stock exchanges during 2004‐2009, a period that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shifted from requiring foreign issuers to comply with the US GAAP reconciliations to permitting the choice of IFRS in financial reporting.

The cost of equity of foreign firms in the IFRS reporting period was compared to that in the US GAAP reconciliation period. Also, the cost of equity of foreign firms was compared to that of matched US firms during the two periods.

The results show that the cost of equity in foreign firms is higher during the IFRS reporting period (2007‐2009) than the US GAAP reconciliation period (2004‐2006); foreign firms exhibit a constantly higher cost of equity than that of matched US firms in both periods; and the size of cost of equity difference remains the same with respect to the regulatory change. Further, it is shown that the change in foreign firms' cost of equity is affected by their home country's IFRS use.

Bonding theory suggests a reduced cost of capital for foreign firms cross‐listed in the USA because US listings require more substantial disclosure. The paper finds evidence that the SEC's waiver of US GAAP reporting does appear to reduce the bonding benefits for cross‐listed foreign firms, particularly those from IFRS adoption countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of class action litigation on firms' cost of equity capital.

The paper uses three different models to estimate the cost of equity capital. To separate the impact of lawsuit filings on the cost of equity capital from that of the revelation event, a sample of lawsuits with a long lag between the disclosure events and filing dates was analyzed. Also, a comparison group study was conducted to illustrate the distinct impact of a lawsuit filing on the defendant firm's cost of equity capital. Finally, a multivariate analysis was used to examine the factors that affect the magnitude of such impact.

The paper finds that filing of a class action lawsuit results in a significant increase in the defendant firm's cost of equity capital incremental to the effect of the disclosure event. Additionally, increases in the cost of equity capital after the lawsuit filings are higher when the lawsuits involve generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) violation and have high merit, and when the defendant firms are small and have high leverage.

Findings in this paper suggest that the filing of a lawsuit brings new information to the market and is likely to increase the defendant firm's cost of equity capital by increasing the perceived risk in corporate governance, information asymmetry and operation.

This paper reveals securities class actions increase the defendant firms' cost of equity capital.