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This dissertation, "The Effect of Earnings Quality on the Association Between Information Precision and the Cost of Equity Capital" by Jia, Zhu,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled The Effect of Earnings Quality on the Association between Information Precision and the Cost of Equity Capital Submitted by Zhu Jia For the Degree of Master of Philosophy At the University of Hong Kong In March 2007 Abstract A growing volume of literature on the association between information and the cost of equity capital has investigated various firm-specific factors that may affect the relationship between public disclosure and the cost of equity capital. My empirical study adds to this literature by showing that the earnings quality of firms might also play a determining role in the association between public information precision and the cost of equity capital. The earnings quality indicator in this study is used to proxy the value-relevance of public disclosure and is included as a control variable in the regression of the cost of equity capital estimates on the information precision. I document that public information is in general negatively associated with the cost of equity capital. However, when the earnings quality of firms is deteriorating to certain extent, the cost of equity capital goes up in response to more precise public information. Moreover, I find that the public and private information precisions act as complements. On the other hand, I do not find an unambiguous association between private information precision and the cost of equity capital, nor any reliable