IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecofin/v30y2014icp90-105.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unlevered betas and the cost of equity capital: An empirical approach

Author

Listed:
  • Sarmiento-Sabogal, Julio
  • Sadeghi, Mehdi

Abstract

The present paper calculates the systematic risk within the context of the capital asset pricing model to investigate the significance of financial leverage on systematic risk. Rather than testing the unlevered beta directly, we develop a multinomial model with theoretically predicted targets in the unleveraged/leveraged process. We find that including tax shields in this process is statistically more robust than omitting them. Our results also suggest that the use of the proxy levered beta to address the lack of market information for both non-traded firms and individual business units is not misleading.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarmiento-Sabogal, Julio & Sadeghi, Mehdi, 2014. "Unlevered betas and the cost of equity capital: An empirical approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 90-105.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:30:y:2014:i:c:p:90-105
    DOI: 10.1016/j.najef.2014.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062940814000989
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.najef.2014.08.002?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. Cooper, Ian A. & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2006. "The value of tax shields IS equal to the present value of tax shields," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 215-225, July.
    2. Enrique R. Arzac & Lawrence R. Glosten, 2005. "A Reconsideration of Tax Shield Valuation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(4), pages 453-461, September.
    3. Fernandez, Pablo, 2007. "A more realistic valuation: APV and WACC with constant book leverage ratio," IESE Research Papers D/715, IESE Business School.
    4. Randolph B. Cohen & Christopher Polk & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2009. "The Price Is (Almost) Right," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2739-2782, December.
    5. Rubinstein, Mark E, 1973. "A Mean-Variance Synthesis of Corporate Financial Theory," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 167-181, March.
    6. Thompson, Samuel B., 2011. "Simple formulas for standard errors that cluster by both firm and time," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-10, January.
    7. Bowman, Robert G, 1979. "The Theoretical Relationship between Systematic Risk and Financial (Accounting) Variables," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(3), pages 617-630, June.
    8. Beaver, William & Manegold, James, 1975. "The Association between Market-Determined and Accounting-Determined Measures of Systematic Risk: Some Further Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 231-284, June.
    9. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    10. Mulford, Cw, 1985. "The Importance Of A Market Value Measurement Of Debt In Leverage Ratios - Replication And Extensions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 897-906.
    11. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Dissecting Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1653-1678, August.
    12. Robert S. Harris & John J. Pringle, 1985. "Risk-Adjusted Discount Rates-Extensions From The Average-Risk Case," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 8(3), pages 237-244, September.
    13. Mandelker, Gershon N. & Rhee, S. Ghon, 1984. "The Impact of the Degrees of Operating and Financial Leverage on Systematic Risk of Common Stock," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 45-57, March.
    14. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "The value of tax shields is NOT equal to the present value of tax shields," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 145-165, July.
    15. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    16. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    17. Bianconi, Marcelo & Chen, Richard & Yoshino, Joe A., 2013. "Firm value, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and cross-listing in the U.S., Germany and Hong Kong destinations," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 25-44.
    18. Faff, R. W. & Brooks, R. D. & Kee, Ho Yew, 2002. "New evidence on the impact of financial leverage on beta risk: A time-series approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, May.
    19. Rosenberg, Barr & McKibben, Walt, 1973. "The Prediction of Systematic and Specific Risk in Common Stocks," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 317-333, March.
    20. Fieten, Paul & Kruschwitz, Lutz & Laitenberger, Jorg & Loffler, Andreas & Tham, Joseph & Velez-Pareja, Ignacio & Wonder, Nicholas, 2005. "Comment on "The value of tax shields is NOT equal to the present value of tax shields"," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 184-187, February.
    21. Kai Li & Xinlei Zhao, 2008. "Asymmetric Information and Dividend Policy," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 673-694, December.
    22. Bhandari, Laxmi Chand, 1988. " Debt/Equity Ratio and Expected Common Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(2), pages 507-528, June.
    23. Wang, Jia & Meric, Gulser & Liu, Zugang & Meric, Ilhan, 2009. "Stock market crashes, firm characteristics, and stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1563-1574, September.
    24. Gwangheon Hong & Sudipto Sarkar, 2007. "Equity Systematic Risk (Beta) and Its Determinants," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 423-466, June.
    25. Tham, Joseph & Velez-Pareja, Ignacio, 2004. "Principles of Cash Flow Valuation," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780126860405.
    26. Miles, James A. & Ezzell, John R., 1980. "The Weighted Average Cost of Capital, Perfect Capital Markets, and Project Life: A Clarification," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 719-730, September.
    27. Fernandez, Pablo, 2005. "Reply to "Comment on the value of tax shields is NOT equal to the present value of tax shields"," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 188-192, February.
    28. Kent Daniel & Sheridan Titman, 2006. "Market Reactions to Tangible and Intangible Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1605-1643, August.
    29. Daniel Hoechle, 2007. "Robust standard errors for panel regressions with cross-sectional dependence," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 281-312, September.
    30. Fernandez, Pablo, 2005. "The value of tax shields is not equal to the present value of tax shields: A correction," IESE Research Papers D/581, IESE Business School.
    31. Miles, James A & Ezzell, John R, 1985. "Reformulating Tax Shield Valuation: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(5), pages 1485-1492, December.
    32. 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 435-452, May.
    33. Robert A. Taggart & Jr., 1991. "Consistent valuation and Cost of Capital Expressions With Corporate and Personal Taxes," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 20(3), Fall.
    34. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    35. Mario Massari & Francesco Roncaglio & Laura Zanetti, 2008. "On the Equivalence between the APV and the wacc Approach in a Growing Leveraged Firm," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 14(1), pages 152-162, January.
    36. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    37. Bowman, Rg, 1980. "The Importance Of A Market-Value Measurement Of Debt In Assessing Leverage," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 242-254.
    38. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    39. Harry F. Griffin & Michael T. Dugan, 2003. "Systematic Risk and Revenue Volatility," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 179-189, June.
    40. Deen Kemsley & Doron Nissim, 2002. "Valuation of the Debt Tax Shield," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2045-2073, October.
    41. Cohen, Ruben D, 2007. "Incorporating default risk into Hamada's Equation for application to capital structure," MPRA Paper 3190, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    42. Fernandez, Pablo, 2004. "Reply to "The value of tax shields is equal to the present value of tax shields"," IESE Research Papers D/576, IESE Business School.
    43. Lev, Baruch, 1974. "On the Association between Operating Leverage and Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 627-641, September.
    44. Gonedes, Nicholas J., 1973. "Evidence on the Information Content of Accounting Numbers: Accounting-based and Market-based Estimates of Systematic Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 407-443, 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. Julio Sarmiento & Mehdi Sadeghi & Juan S. Sandoval & Edgardo Cayon, 2021. "The application of proxy methods for estimating the cost of equity for unlisted companies: evidence from listed firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1009-1031, October.

    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. Julio Sarmiento & Mehdi Sadeghi & Juan S. Sandoval & Edgardo Cayon, 2021. "The application of proxy methods for estimating the cost of equity for unlisted companies: evidence from listed firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1009-1031, October.
    2. Lucia MICHALKOVA & Tomas KLIESTIK, 2019. "The Role Of Risk In The Valuation Of Tax Shield," Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(1), pages 218-233, November.
    3. Liu, Hao & Zhang, Hao & Gao, Ya-Chun & Chen, Xu-Dong, 2022. "Firm age and beta: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 244-261.
    4. Dirk Beyer, 2018. "A matrix approach to valuation and performance measurement based on accounting information considering different financing policies," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 37-61, March.
    5. Luis García‐Feijóo & Randy D. Jorgensen, 2010. "Can Operating Leverage Be the Cause of the Value Premium?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1127-1154, September.
    6. Andrea Gamba & Gordon A. Sick & Carmen Aranda León, 2008. "Investment under Uncertainty, Debt and Taxes," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 37(1), pages 31-58, February.
    7. Michael Dempsey, 2015. "Stock Markets, Investments and Corporate Behavior:A Conceptual Framework of Understanding," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number p1007, January.
    8. Nguyen Kim-Duc & Pham Khanh Nam, 2024. "Consistent valuation: extensions from bankruptcy costs and tax integration with time-varying debt," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 719-754, February.
    9. J. Sarmiento-Sabogal & M. Sadeghi, 2015. "Estimating the cost of equity for private firms using accounting fundamentals," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 288-301, January.
    10. Ralf Diedrich & Stefan Dierkes & Hans-Christian Gröger, 2022. "A note on the cost of capital with fixed payout ratios," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1559-1575, November.
    11. Cooper, Ian A. & Nyborg, Kjell G., 2006. "The value of tax shields IS equal to the present value of tax shields," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 215-225, July.
    12. Marko Volker Krause & Alexander Lahmann, 2016. "Reconsidering the appropriate discount rate for tax shield valuation," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 86(5), pages 477-512, July.
    13. Keef, Stephen P & Khaled, Mohammed S & Roush, Melvin L, 2011. "Miller's (2009) WACC model: An extension," Working Paper Series 1995, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    14. Sven Arnold & Alexander Lahmann & Bernhard Schwetzler, 2018. "Discontinuous financing based on market values and the value of tax shields," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 11(1), pages 149-171, February.
    15. Mike Dempsey, 2013. "Consistent Cash Flow Valuation with Tax†Deductible Debt: a Clarification," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(4), pages 830-836, September.
    16. Atif Ellahie, 2021. "Earnings beta," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 81-122, March.
    17. Alexander Lahmann & Maximilian Schreiter & Bernhard Schwetzler, 2018. "Der Einfluss von Insolvenz, Kapitalstruktur und Fremdkapitalfälligkeit auf den Unternehmenswert [The Impact of Default Risk, Capital Structure, and Debt Maturity on Firm Value]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 73-123, March.
    18. Madhusmita Bhadra & Doyeon Kim, 2023. "Income elasticity of demand and stock market beta," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 225-240, August.
    19. Keef, Stephen P & Khaled, Mohammed S & Roush, Melvin L, 2011. "Miller's (2009) WACC model: An extension," Working Paper Series 18608, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    20. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2009. "Splitting up value: A critical review of residual income theories," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(1), pages 1-22, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Equity cost; Unlevered beta; Unlisted firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:ecofin:v:30:y:2014:i:c:p:90-105. 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/inca/620163 .

    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.