Impact of investment efficiency on cost of equity: evidence from China

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of investment efficiency on cost of equity capital. Design/methodology/approach - Prior research indicated that any governance mechanism which reduces the agency conflict reduces the cost of equity capital. This study provides empirical evidence that investment efficiency represents such governance mechanism which reduces agency conflict and hence cost of equity. The authors use price earning growth ratio (Easton, 2004) and Ohlson and Juettner-Nauroth (2005) model for the measurement of cost of equity while investment efficiency measure of Biddle et al. (2009) have been employed to examine the association. We also use Chen et al. (2013) measure of investment efficiency for robustness. Findings - The results show that investment efficiency is negatively associated with cost of equity. It was also found that there is a strong relationship of investment efficiency with cost of equity for non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs), while no significant relationship is found for state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, overinvestment is significantly associated with cost of equity capital. However, no significant relationship was found between underinvestment and cost of equity. Originality/value - The results provide empirical support to the argument that investment efficiency acts as a mechanism which represents lower agency conflict. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that government act as "deep pocket" while NSOEs are punished by investors for inefficient resource allocation. This study also proposes that there is a positive relationship between overinvestment and cost of equity.