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Alternative measures of the Federal Reserve banks' cost of equity capital

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Author Info
Michelle L. Barnes
Jose Lopez

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Abstract

The Monetary Control Act of 1980 requires the Federal Reserve System to provide payment services to depository institutions through the twelve Federal Reserve Banks at prices that fully reflect the costs a private-sector provider would incur, including a cost of equity capital (COE). Although Fama and French (1997) conclude that COE estimates are “woefully” and “unavoidably” imprecise, the Reserve Banks require such an estimate every year. We examine several COE estimates based on the CAPM model and compare them using econometric and materiality criteria. Our results suggests that the benchmark CAPM model applied to a large peer group of competing firms provides a COE estimate that is not clearly improved upon by using a narrow peer group, introducing additional factors into the model, or taking account of additional firm-level data, such as leverage and line-of-business concentration. Thus, a standard implementation of the benchmark CAPM model provides a reasonable COE estimate, which is needed to impute costs and set prices for the Reserve Banks’ payments business.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in its series Working Paper Series with number 2005-06.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2005-06

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Keywords: Financial services industry ; Federal Reserve banks - Service charges ; Federal Reserve banks - Costs;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Michael C. Ehrhardt & Yatin N. Bhagwat, 1991. "A Full-information Approach for Estimating Divisional Betas," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 20(2), Summer.
  2. Hamada, Robert S, 1972. "The Effect of the Firm's Capital Structure on the Systematic Risk of Common Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 435-52, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gilbert, R. Alton & Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2004. "New evidence on the Fed's productivity in providing payments services," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2175-2190, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Edward J. Green & Jose A. Lopez & Zhenyu Wang, 2001. "The Federal Reserve banks' imputed cost of equity capital," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2001-01, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
  5. Jose A. Lopez, 2001. "Federal Reserve banks' imputed cost of equity capital," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Aug 10. [Downloadable!]
  6. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James B. Thomson, 2001. "PSAF, economic capital, and the new Basel Accord," Working Paper 0111, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
  8. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Paul D. Kaplan & James D. Peterson, 1998. "Full-Information Industry Betas," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 27(2), Summer.
  10. Bower, Dorothy H & Bower, Richard S & Logue, Dennis E, 1984. " Arbitrage Pricing Theory and Utility Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1041-54, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Edward J. Green & Jose A. Lopez & Zhenyu Wang, 2003. "Formulating the imputed cost of equity capital for priced services at Federal Reserve banks," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Sep, pages 55-81. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Marques Benton & Krista Blair & Marianne Crowe & Scott Schuh, 2007. "The Boston Fed study of consumer behavior and payment choice: a survey of Federal Reserve System employees," Public Policy Discussion Paper 07-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
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