Modeling the Factors Affecting Cost of Equity Capital: Evidences from Tehran Stock Exchange

Using structural equation modeling, we investigated the direct and indirect links between corporate governance, industry competition structure and the cost of equity capital. Our investigation was motivated by analytical models that specify both a direct and an indirect link that is mediated by financial reporting quality and financial performance. For 61 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during 1384-1393, we used Partial Least Squair (PLS) method to analyze the models and used Smart PLS2 software to do that. We found statistically reliable evidence of both a direct path from corporate governance to the cost of equity, and an indirect path that is mediated by financial reporting quality and financial performance, with the weight of the evidence favoring the direct path as the more important. Also, we found statistically reliable evidence of an indirect path that is mediated by financial reporting quality and financial performance from industry competition structure to the cost of equity. The direct path between them was not statistically significant.