Contour plowing. Contour ploughing or contour farming is the farming practice of ploughing and/or planting across a slope following its elevation contour lines. These contour lines create a water break which reduces the formation of rills and gullies during times of heavy water run-off; which is a major cause of top soil loss and soil erosion.
The ex-ante cost of equity capital is the core fac-tor in financial decision making such as equity valuation or project evaluation. As the ex-ante cost of equity capital is not observable, the ex-post realized stock return has been utilized as an indirect measure of the ex-ante cost of equity capital.However, the realized stock return has been proven as a noisy proxy for the ex-ante cost of eq-uity (Fama and French, 1997; Elton, 1999).sia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies (2008) v37 n4 G  which suggests that the ICOE may reduce the noises in the ex-post stock returns as a proxy for the ex-ante cost of equity capital. Table 2 also reports the correlations among risk proxies.
Debt finance is cheap, LONG-TERM INVESTMENT, THE COST OF CAPITAL AND THE DIVIDEND AND BUYBACK PUZZLE 14 OECD JOURNAL: FINANCIAL MARKET TRENDS 2013/1 Â© OECD 2013 while the cost of equity capital needed for risky long-term investment is still high (unaffected by low rates).he cost of equity capital for a retained earnings investment is: (8) Figure 1 shows an empirical calculation of the cost of equity k. 4 Since 2000, the US cost of equity has drifted upwards from 8-3/4%, spiking at 11-1/4% at the end of 2008, and currently around 10%.