Accounting Beta: Which Measure Is the Best? Findings from Italian Market

The estimation of cost of equity represents one of the themes more debated. In fact cost of equity is often used in evaluation reports and so It is necessary to employ fair cost of equity. However in literature there is a lack about models addressed to unlisted companies, while methods thought for listed companies are largely studied. So the aim of this research is to focus attention on the accounting beta, a model that can be used also for unlisted companies. After a literature review we have conduct an empirical analysis on Italian market to check the stability of accounting beta respect to CAPM beta. Furthermore a second level of analysis has been carried forward in order to identify which accounting measure is preferable to use.