Those who rely on appraisers or valuation analysts rarely understand the complexties or importance of establishing the cost of capital. When I first began doing valuation work in the late 1980’s there was no practical source except the portfolio information published by Yale University finance guru Roger Ibbotson. Eventually, Dr. Ibbotson added more data points to his annual cost of capital studies for the benefit of appraisers and other finance professionals.
Now there are multiple sources of cost of (equity) capital data (besides the raw data from public bond and equity markets), a few of which are listed below:
Duff & Phelps now publishes the “CRSP” data previously published by Ibbotson & Associates, grouped into size deciles
Roger Grabowski of Duff & Phelps published another cost of capital database related to accounting data, grouped in 25 portfolios
Aswath Damodaran of the New York University Stern School of Business publishes his annual estimates of the cost of capital
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/wacc.htm)
Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management business school publishes cost of capital data as part of its Private Capital Markets Project
(http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/about/people/faculty/appliedresearch/research/pcmsurvey)
In the near future, I plan to write about: the idea of cost of capital, risk-free rates, the equity risk premium, the size premium, and related topics.