IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/oaefxx/v4y2016i1p1233628.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A look at the actual cost of capital of US firms

Author

Listed:
  • David J. Moore
  • David McMillan

Abstract

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) receives both criticism and widespread adoption by practitioners and academics as the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) equity component. This study introduces two new costs of equity measures to address CAPM criticisms and provide new perspective on WACC estimates. The firm-based measure focuses on firm–investor cash flows while the market-based measure focuses solely on actual market returns. This study applies its firm and market-based WACC measures, along with the traditional CAPM-based WACC measure, to a broad sector-based cross section from 1972 to 2015. Results show that traditional CAPM-based WACC estimates consistently lie between the new firm and market-based WACC estimates. The central positioning of CAPM WACC supports its use as a conservative hurdle rate estimate for firms and a conservative expected return estimate for investors relative to actual returns.

Suggested Citation

  • David J. Moore & David McMillan, 2016. "A look at the actual cost of capital of US firms," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1233628-123, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:oaefxx:v:4:y:2016:i:1:p:1233628
    DOI: 10.1080/23322039.2016.1233628
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/23322039.2016.1233628
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/23322039.2016.1233628?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. Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2002. "Dividends, Share Repurchases, and the Substitution Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1649-1684, August.
    2. Gupta, Sanjay & Newberry, Kaye, 1997. "Determinants of the variability in corporate effective tax rates: Evidence from longitudinal data," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-34.
    3. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 1999. "The Corporate Cost of Capital and the Return on Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1939-1967, December.
    4. Da, Zhi & Guo, Re-Jin & Jagannathan, Ravi, 2012. "CAPM for estimating the cost of equity capital: Interpreting the empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 204-220.
    5. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    6. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    7. Floyd, Eric & Li, Nan & Skinner, Douglas J., 2015. "Payout policy through the financial crisis: The growth of repurchases and the resilience of dividends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 299-316.
    8. Jonathan B. Berk & Richard C. Green & Vasant Naik, 1999. "Optimal Investment, Growth Options, and Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1553-1607, October.
    9. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2006. "The Value Premium and the CAPM," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2163-2185, October.
    10. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "The CAPM Is Wanted, Dead or Alive," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1947-1958, December.
    11. Frank, Murray Z. & Shen, Tao, 2016. "Investment and the weighted average cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 300-315.
    12. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    13. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Da, Zhi & Guo, Re-Jin & Jagannathan, Ravi, 2012. "CAPM for estimating the cost of equity capital: Interpreting the empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 204-220.
    2. Babak Jafarizadeh & Reidar B. Bratvold, 2019. "Exploration economics: taking opportunities and the risk of double-counting risk," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(3), pages 323-335, November.
    3. Guo, Hui & Savickas, Robert, 2010. "Relation between time-series and cross-sectional effects of idiosyncratic variance on stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1637-1649, July.
    4. Sebastian Lobe & Christian Walkshäusl, 2016. "Vice versus virtue investing around the world," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 303-344, March.
    5. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2012. "Size, value, and momentum in international stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 457-472.
    6. Joel M. Vanden, 2021. "Equilibrium asset pricing and the cross section of expected returns," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 153-186, June.
    7. Christian Bach, 2011. "Conservatism in Corporate Valuation," CREATES Research Papers 2011-32, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    8. Tanveer Ahmad; Syed Muhammad Amir Shah, 2017. "The Value-Growth Indicators and Value Premium: Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange," South Asian Journal of Management Sciences (SAJMS), Iqra University, Iqra University, vol. 11(2), pages 124-139, Fall.
    9. Leonid Kogan & Dimitris Papanikolaou, 2014. "Growth Opportunities, Technology Shocks, and Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 675-718, April.
    10. Pantzalis, Christos & Park, Jung Chul, 2009. "Equity market valuation of human capital and stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1610-1623, September.
    11. Su, Xuan-Qi, 2016. "Does systematic distress risk drive the investment growth anomaly?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 240-248.
    12. Kewei Hou & Haitao Mo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2019. "Which Factors?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-35.
    13. Michael Curran & Adnan Velic, 2020. "The CAPM, National Stock Market Betas, and Macroeconomic Covariates: a Global Analysis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 787-820, September.
    14. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    15. Olivier, Jacques & Dessaint, Olivier & Otto, Clemens A. & Thesmar, David, 2017. "CAPM-Based Company (Mis)valuations," HEC Research Papers Series 1235, HEC Paris, revised 20 Mar 2018.
    16. Chabi-Yo, Fousseni & Ruenzi, Stefan & Weigert, Florian, 2018. "Crash Sensitivity and the Cross Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 1059-1100, June.
    17. Kang, Moonsoo & Khaksari, S. & Nam, Kiseok, 2018. "Corporate investment, short-term return reversal, and stock liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 68-83.
    18. Chuan ‘Chewie’ Ang, Tze & Lam, F.Y. Eric C. & Ma, Tai & Wang, Shujing & Wei, K.C. John, 2019. "What is the real relationship between cash holdings and stock returns?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 513-528.
    19. Jank, Stephan, 2015. "Specialized human capital, unemployment risk, and the value premium," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113214, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Ahmad, Tanveer & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Rehman, Mobeen ur, 2014. "Risk or Sentiment: Value and Size Premium under Terrorism," MPRA Paper 60027, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:oaefxx:v:4:y:2016:i:1:p:1233628. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/OAEF20 .

    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.