--%>

Effect of illegal obligations on cost of equity

If dividends paid to common stockholders are not legal obligations of a corporation, is the cost of equity zero?  Describe your answer.

Even though common stockholders do not contain a contractual claim on dividends the funds supplied by stockholders definitely contain a cost.  Equity investors are paid last and therefore they are taking the greatest risk among all of the suppliers of capital.  If the company does not get a higher rate of return onto equity funds to compensate for the higher risk taken through equity investors, the price of the stock will fall and thus the value of the firm. 

   Related Questions in Managerial Accounting

  • Q : Define Cost Avoidance Cost Avoidance :

    Cost Avoidance: The action taken to decrease future costs, like replacing parts before they fail and cause harm to other portions. Cost avoidance might incur higher (or extra) costs in the short run however the final or life-cycle cost would be lower.

  • Q : Operation of business

    What are the main reasons that the operation of business environment has become ever more turbulent and competitive?

  • Q : Liability of partners Liability of

    Liability of partners: A) Under contract law: Liability is joint only (collectively); The creditor has only one right of action (except in NSW, where liability is now joint and several).

  • Q : What is Job Order Costing Job Order

    Job Order Costing: A technique of cost accounting which accrued costs for individual jobs or lots. A job might be a service or manufactured item, like the repair of tools or the treatment of a patient in the hospital.

  • Q : Basic accounting principles or concepts

    ACCOUNTING CONCEPTS: Presented below are basic accounting principles or concepts, with which hospital managers should be familiar and that they should understand i

  • Q : Elements of Partnership Three main

    Three main elements of Partnership: A) Carrying on of a business: • A ‘business’ is any trade, occupation or pr

  • Q : Cash merger Business combination in

    Business combination in which the acquiring corporation buys all the assets of the target, recording them at fair market values. The target is absorbed into the acquiring corpora- tion, and has gains on the sales of the assets that appear on its last tax return. In ad

  • Q : Define Variance Variance : The rate,

    Variance: The rate, amount, extent, or degree of change, or the divergence from a preferred state or characteristic.

  • Q : Define Cost Object Cost Object (also

    Cost Object (also referred to as Cost Objective): It is an activity, item, or output whose cost is to be computed. In a wide sense, a cost object can be an organizational division, task, a function, product, service, or a customer.

  • Q : Evaluate the strategic options Identify

    Identify and evaluate the strategic options in brief?