IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eurjfi/v20y2014i6p568-594.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating cost of capital in firm valuations with arithmetic or geometric mean - or better use the Cooper estimator?

Author

Listed:
  • Wolfgang Breuer
  • Daniel Fuchs
  • Klaus Mark

Abstract

We test the extent and determinants of bias effects of the arithmetic as well as the geometric mean estimator and the estimator of Cooper [1996. Arithmetic versus geometric mean estimators: Setting discount rates for capital budgeting. European Financial Management 2 (July): 157-67] regarding discount rate estimation for firm valuation by way of a bootstrap approach for 13 different countries. The Cooper estimator is superior to both the geometric and the (conventional) arithmetic mean estimator. However, a 'truncated' version of the arithmetic mean estimator leads generally to better estimation outcomes than the Cooper estimator. This means that, in order to reduce problems of upward-biased firm value estimates, expected cash flows beyond a certain time horizon are completely neglected in terminal value estimation. Such an approach seems particularly reasonable for the valuation of young growth companies as well as for companies from quickly developing countries such as Brazil, China, or Thailand, because the bias in terminal value estimation is increasing in the growth rate of future expected cash flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfgang Breuer & Daniel Fuchs & Klaus Mark, 2014. "Estimating cost of capital in firm valuations with arithmetic or geometric mean - or better use the Cooper estimator?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(6), pages 568-594, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurjfi:v:20:y:2014:i:6:p:568-594
    DOI: 10.1080/1351847X.2012.733717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1351847X.2012.733717
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1351847X.2012.733717?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Vidal García, Raúl & Ribal Sanchis, Javier & Blasco Ruiz, Ana, 2021. "Stock market multiples in the valuation of unlisted agrifood companies. || Múltiplos de mercado en la valoración de empresas agroalimentarias no cotizadas," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 31(1), pages 198-225, June.
    2. Christoph Kaserer, 2022. "Estimating the market risk premium for valuations: arithmetic or geometric mean or something in between?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(8), pages 1373-1415, October.
    3. Vidal-Garcia Raül & Ribal Javier, 2019. "Terminal Value in SMEs: Testing the Multiple EV/EBITDA Approach," Journal of Business Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, February.
    4. Wolfgang Breuer & Karsten Kohn & Klaus Mark, 2017. "A note on corporate valuation using imprecise cost of capital," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(6), pages 709-747, August.

    More about this item

    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:taf:eurjfi:v:20:y:2014:i:6:p:568-594. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJF20 .

    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.