IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v46y2022ipas1544612321002981.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of COVID-19 on firms’ cost of equity capital: Early evidence from U.S. public firms

Author

Listed:
  • Ke, Yun

Abstract

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affects firms’ cost of equity capital. I use analyst earnings forecasts and stock prices data to estimate firms’ cost of equity capital. With 18,740 firm-month observations from September 2019 to August 2020, I show that firms experienced an increase in the cost of equity capital during the pandemic. On average, the cost of equity capital increased about 172 basis-points. The effect is also more pronounced in firms with greater COVID-19 exposure. Overall, I document a significantly adverse impact of COVID-19 on firms’ cost of capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Ke, Yun, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on firms’ cost of equity capital: Early evidence from U.S. public firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:46:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612321002981
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2021.102242
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612321002981
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2021.102242?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tarek A. Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2020. "Firm-Level Exposure to Epidemic Diseases: Covid-19, SARS, and H1N1," Working Papers Series inetwp119, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    2. Xiuhong Qin & Guoliang Huang & Huayu Shen & Mengyao Fu, 2020. "COVID-19 Pandemic and Firm-level Cash Holding—Moderating Effect of Goodwill and Goodwill Impairment," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 2243-2258, August.
    3. Jong-Wha Lee & Warwick J. McKibbin, 2004. "Globalization and Disease: The Case of SARS," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 113-131.
    4. Ariel R. Belasen & Solomon W. Polachek, 2008. "How Hurricanes Affect Wages and Employment in Local Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 49-53, May.
    5. Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2006. "International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital: Do Legal Institutions and Securities Regulation Matter?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 485-531, June.
    6. Goodell, John W., 2020. "COVID-19 and finance: Agendas for future research," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    7. Chen, Zhihong & Huang, Yuan & Wei, K. C. John, 2013. "Executive Pay Disparity and the Cost of Equity Capital," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 849-885, June.
    8. Dhaliwal, Dan & Judd, J. Scott & Serfling, Matthew & Shaikh, Sarah, 2016. "Customer concentration risk and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 23-48.
    9. Robin Greenwood & Benjamin Iverson & David Thesmar, 2020. "Sizing up Corporate Restructuring in the COVID Crisis," NBER Working Papers 28104, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jean-Noël Barrot & Julien Sauvagnat, 2016. "Input Specificity and the Propagation of Idiosyncratic Shocks in Production Networks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1543-1592.
    11. Belasen, Ariel R. & Polachek, Solomon, 2008. "How Hurricanes Affect Employment and Wages in Local Labor Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 3407, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Chen, Zhihong & Li, Oliver Zhen & Zou, Hong, 2016. "Directors׳ and officers׳ liability insurance and the cost of equity," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 100-120.
    13. Mazur, Mieszko & Dang, Man & Vo, Thuy Anh Thi, 2020. "Dividend Policy and the COVID-19 Crisis," MPRA Paper 108765, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. James Claus & Jacob Thomas, 2001. "Equity Premia as Low as Three Percent? Evidence from Analysts' Earnings Forecasts for Domestic and International Stock Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1629-1666, October.
    15. William R. Gebhardt & Charles M. C. Lee & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2001. "Toward an Implied Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 135-176, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khanh Hoang & Cuong Nguyen & Dung Viet Tran & Anh Phan, 2022. "International Corporate Cash Holdings and Firm-Level Exposure to COVID-19: Do Cultural Dimensions Matter?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-14, June.
    2. Fasano, Francesco & Javier Sánchez-Vidal, F. & La Rocca, Maurizio, 2022. "The role of government policies for Italian firms during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. D’Augusta, Carlo & Grossetti, Francesco, 2023. "How did Covid-19 affect investors’ interpretation of earnings news? The role of accounting conservatism," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yamina Chouaibi & Matteo Rossi & Ghazi Zouari, 2021. "The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Executive Compensation on Implicit Cost of Equity: Evidence from French ESG Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir & Boubaker, Sabri & Ding, Xiaoya (Sara), 2021. "Annual report readability and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    3. Banerjee, Rajabrata & Gupta, Kartick & Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar, 2022. "Does corrupt practice increase the implied cost of equity?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Shen, Carl Hsin-han & Zhang, Hao, 2020. "What's good for you is good for me: The effect of CEO inside debt on the cost of equity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Hasan, Mostafa Monzur & Cheung, Adrian (Wai Kong) & Marwick, Trevor, 2022. "Corporate sexual orientation equality policies and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    6. He, Guanming & Li, Zhichao & Yu, Ling & Zhou, Zhanqiang, 2023. "Contribution to poverty alleviation: A waste or benefit for corporate financing?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Cameron Truong & Thu Ha Nguyen & Thanh Huynh, 2021. "Customer satisfaction and the cost of capital," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 293-342, March.
    8. Benjamin Lynch & Martha O'Hagan‐Luff, 2024. "Relative corporate social performance and cost of equity capital: International evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 2882-2910, July.
    9. Belkhir, Mohamed & Ben Naceur, Sami & Chami, Ralph & Samet, Anis, 2021. "Bank capital and the cost of equity," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    10. James E. Upson & Chao Wei, 2024. "Supply chain concentration and cost of capital," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 64(1), pages 607-634, March.
    11. Amairi, Haifa & Gallali, Mohamed Imen & Sassi, Syrine, 2022. "Market pressure and cost of equity: Revisited," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    12. Ben Hmiden, Oussama & Rjiba, Hatem & Saadi, Samir, 2022. "Competition through environmental CSR engagement and cost of equity capital," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    13. Pham, Anh Viet, 2019. "Political risk and cost of equity: The mediating role of political connections," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 64-87.
    14. Kerstin Lopatta & Thomas Kaspereit & Sebastian A. Tideman & Anna R. Rudolf, 2022. "The moderating role of CEO sustainability reporting style in the relationship between sustainability performance, sustainability reporting, and cost of equity," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 429-465, April.
    15. Phillip T. Lamoreaux & Landon M. Mauler & Nathan J. Newton, 2020. "Audit Regulation and Cost of Equity Capital: Evidence from the PCAOB's International Inspection Regime," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2438-2471, December.
    16. Li, Tongxia & Lu, Chun & Si, Ieong Cheng & Zhao, Zucheng, 2022. "Employment protection and the cost of equity capital: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    17. Deng, Xin & Li, Qian Cher & Mateut, Simona, 2022. "Participation in setting technology standards and the implied cost of equity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    18. Brigitte Eierle & Sven Hartlieb & Andreas Kress & Francesco Mazzi, 2021. "Hedge Accounting and Firms’ Future Investment Spending," Working Papers - Business wp2021_01.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    19. Schütz, Claudio & Pape, Ulrich, 2024. "Are investors afraid of populism?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    20. Gupta, Atul & Raman, Kartik & Shang, Chenguang, 2018. "Social capital and the cost of equity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 102-117.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Pandemic; Cost of equity capital; COVID-19 exposure; Health crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:46:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612321002981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.