EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Disagreement and the Cost of Capital

Robert Bloomfield and Paul E. Fischer

Journal of Accounting Research, 2011, vol. 49, issue 1, 41-68

Abstract: We assess how forms of disagreement among investors affect a firm's cost of capital. Firms experience a lower cost of capital if investors perceive that other investors are ignoring relevant disclosures (perceived errors of omission), but a higher cost of capital if investors perceive that others are responding to irrelevant disclosures (perceived errors of commission). The impact of these two sources of disagreement on the cost of capital is determined by the distribution of opinion and the nature of disclosure. For example, even though aggregated disclosures reveal less to investors, aggregated disclosures may decrease the cost of capital by eliminating disagreement associated with perceived errors of commission. These and additional results arise because the cost of capital is driven not only by investors’ uncertainty about the firm's future earnings performance, but also by investors’ uncertainty about the evolution of beliefs, which partly determines the path of prices.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2010.00389.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:joares:v:49:y:2011:i:1:p:41-68

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0021-8456

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Accounting Research is currently edited by Philip G. Berger, Luzi Hail, Christian Leuz, Haresh Sapra, Douglas J. Skinner, Rodrigo Verdi and Regina Wittenberg Moerman

More articles in Journal of Accounting Research from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:49:y:2011:i:1:p:41-68