Using legitimacy and institutional theories, this study investigates whether lending institutions reward firms in 15 EU countries for their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and disclosure in terms of lowering their cost of debt capital. Our study distinguishes between ESG performance that is used to indicate an effective commitment to ESG strategies, and ESG disclosure that represents an effort to construct an image of commitment designed to positively influence stakeholders' perceptions. Supporting a version of legitimacy theory, we find that lending institutions value both ESG performance and disclosure and integrate ESG information in their credit decisionsin that firms with stronger ESG performance have a lower cost of debt, and ESG disclosure has an equal impact on the cost of debt as ESG performance. Although these findings suggest that the market (in context) can engender more desirable social outcomes by rewarding ESG practices, it fails to distinguish between ESG performance and disclosure (which may be contrasted as the more substantive and the more symbolic). Moreover, our results also reflect upon the importance of the role that civil society and the state play in addressing and exploring the limitations of free-market regimes. Specifically, we provide evidence that the impact of ESG performance and disclosure on the cost of debt is more dominant in the stakeholder-oriented countries (where the community is more prevalent). Our main findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including an alternative measure of the cost of debt, model specifications, and different approaches to address endogeneity. We acknowledge limitations in our research method but point nevertheless to its value in supporting a critical perspective and make suggestions for future research.

This study examines the association between earnings quality and the cost of equity in the United Kingdom (UK) over the time period 2005-2011. This setting and time period enables us to examine the effect of IFRS based earnings on the pricing of earnings quality and how this relation is influenced by a period of severe macroeconomic turbulence as in the case of the recent global financial crisis. We find a significant negative association between each accounting-based earnings quality proxy considered separately and the cost of equity. Our results also indicate that during the financial crisis the relationship between earnings quality and cost of equity becomes more prominent than in the pre-crisis period. This strengthening of the relationship during a period of macroeconomic turbulence shows the importance investors place on earnings quality as a measure of risk. Our results also document that investors place more importance on the innate component of accruals quality than on the discretionary component. These results should be reassuring to US standard setters who are considering adopting or converging to IFRS.

Purpose-This paper aims to investigate the empirical relationship between the cost of debt (CoD) and accruals quality (AQ) of European listed firms during the period of 2005 to 2014. Also, it aims to test the impact of the interrelationship between the financial crisis (2008-2009) and AQ on CoD. Finally, we decompose AQ into two components; the innate (InnateAQ) and discretionary components (DiscAQ) and test their relationships with CoD. Design/methodology/approach-To empirically examine the relationship between AQ and CoD, a sample including 15-member states of the EU is constructed. AQ proxy is based on the McNichols (2002) modification of Dechow and Dichev (2002) model. A univariate analysis and a multivariate analysis are conducted to examine the relationship between AQ and CoD after controlling for firm characteristics and institutional variables. Findings-We find a significant negative association between AQ and CoD in a vast proportion of the 15 countries under review. Also, the results indicate that during the crisis period, creditors pay relatively more attention to the quality of accounting information than during the pre-crisis period when they determine CoD of firms. Moreover, we report a link between the magnitude of this relationship and national characteristics and provide evidence of the significant effects of national characteristics and market forces on the CoD. Finally, we find that the InnateAQ drives the relationship with CoD. Practical implications-This paper provides up-to-date evidence of the economic consequences of IFRS and AQ. The results should, therefore, be of interest to managers, creditors, regulators and standard-setters. Originality/value-To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effects of AQ on CoD for European listed firms. Also, it is the first to examine the impact of financial crisis on the association between AQ on CoD.