Obiettivo dell’articolo è analizzare come la qualità della corporate governance (CG) impatti sul costo del capitale di rischio (CEC). L’analisi è condotta su un campione di società quotate presso la Borsa Valori di Milano. Le caratteristiche di governance interna sono state prese a riferimento per costruire un indice sintetico della qualità di corporate governance (CG score). Tale indicatore è stato utilizzato nell’analisi della regressione con il CEC quale variabile dipendente, dopo aver controllato per i fattori di rischio individuati da Fama e French (1993). I risultati mettono in luce l’esistenza di una associazione positiva tra la qualità della governance interna e il costo del capitale proprio dell’impresa. Lo studio ha notevoli implicazioni empiriche e pratiche.

HOW THE QUALITY OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IMPACTS ON THE COST OF EQUITY CAPITAL#Analysing the Italian Stock Exchange. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the quality of corporate governance (CG) impacts on the cost of equity capital (CEC). The research has been carried out on a sample of companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange on 12/31/2009. The selected CG attributes (board independence, board size, existence of the audit and the nomination/remuneration committees and independence of board committees) have been used to construct a comprehensive corporate governance quality index (CG score), regressed on the CEC, controlling for differences in the Fama and French (1993) risk factors. The results provide evidence of a significant association between the CG score and the firm’s cost of equity capital. The study has both empirical and practical implications. The implications for the empirical literature of the existence of a direct effect of CG on CEC could be the addition, to the actual business evaluation models of the investors, of a governance risk premium in order to capture non-diversifiable risk associated with weaker governance. As regards the practical implications of the study, for managers, a stronger awareness of the impact of CG on CEC could help them in implementing good internal CG mechanisms.