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The growing use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure delivery has rekindled the public versus private cost-of-capital debate. Early debate concluded that the social cost of public-sector capital is below that of private capital because risk can be spread across numerous taxpayers. Intervening research focused on the agency costs that arise due to increased separation between equity holders and managers and the various mechanisms to control those agency costs. We analyze differences in public versus private residual claims and their associated agency costs. We conclude that earlier discussions that omitted agency-cost analysis should be revisited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study is to verify the moderating effect of earnings management on the relationship between corporate governance and the cost of third-party capital of publicly-held companies listed in [B]?, in the period from 2012 to 2017. Initially descriptive analyses were made and later the panel data technique was used. The results reveal that companies with a higher level of corporate governance are able to raise capital from third parties at a lower cost, however, these same companies when associated with the use of earnings management practices make the cost of capital from third parties higher. In general, the evidences from this research contribute to fill an important gap in the national literature, by verifying that companies that use earnings management practices annul the likely favorable effect of corporate governance in reducing the cost of third-party capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study focuses on firms that are audited by a big auditor and examines the differentiation in the earnings management potential and the level of conservatism. It also investigates whether being audited by a big auditor would lead to lower agency costs and lower cost of equity. The study focuses on emerging common-law South Africa and code-law Brazil, and seeks to identify whether there are material differences given their dissimilar institutional characteristics. The study reports that even though firms may be audited by high quality auditors, their institutional differences influence significantly firms'' earnings conservatism, agency costs and cost of equity. Client firms of big auditors in both common-law South Africa and code-law Brazil exhibit lower discretionary accruals. The study has found evidence of more conservative earnings for South Africa but insufficient levels for Brazil. For common-law South Africa, the presence of effective corporate governance mechanisms reduces agency costs. For code-law Brazil, the corporate governance mechanisms generally display an insignificant impact on reducing agency costs. For common-law South Africa, firm-level performance, growth and market determinants tend to lead to a lower cost of equity. For code-law Brazil, it is found that significant discretionary accruals, market beta and analyst forecast dispersion would result in higher uncertainty and would consequently raise the cost of equity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]