This paper develops empirical estimates of the average cost of capital for 58 U.S.
industries during 1990-2004. A simple, parsimonious theoretical relation between an
industry’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and the industry’s economic profit
is used to obtain empirical estimates of the WACC for these 58 industries. We show that
our technique requires fewer data inputs for deriving WACC estimates than the
conventional (or “textbook”) cost of capital technique and are robust to alternative time
periods. The method can also be applied to firm-level as well as industry data. The
model’s estimates perform better in out-of-sample forecasts of profitability than estimates
based on the conventional method. Overall, the results suggest our technique can be a
more expedient, descriptive, and less-subjective method of deriving estimates of an
industry’s (or firm’s) weighted average cost of capital and economic profit. This new
method can be used to complement or supplement the textbook approach to estimating
the cost of capital.