Swiss Economics was commissioned by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to investigate whether state-owned enterprises affiliated with the federal government benefit from financing advantages. To this end, the debt and equity capital costs of PostFinance, Swiss Post, SBB and Swisscom were estimated and compared with those of private competitors. The empirical results show that these companies do indeed have lower capital costs than private companies. However, it remains unclear whether and to what extent they can actually benefit from this, as they are subject to strict regulatory and political constraints. The study was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dr Dirk Niepelt from the University of Bern.

Methodology

• Overview of international empirical literature using keyword search
• Determination of debt capital costs (bond yields, rating- and option-based approaches)
• Determination of equity capital costs (dividend discount model, CAPM, multifactor models)

Publications

• SECO
• Die Volkswirtschaft