Cost of equity

[Evan]

In the EVA thread the OP wrote this, "a cost of equity calculation does not require beta, it’s just something that’s historically been used a lot." I thought it was an interesting statement because it's something I haven't thought about a lot.

Cost of equtiy has always evoked the thought of "risk free rate plus beta times the risk premium" for me. Thinking about it there obviously SHOULD be other ways to go about it, but I can't think of any. I'll put some more effort into this later because I feel like I should be able to come up with something reasonable, but I wanted to post it before I forgot.

So, how would you calculate a cost of equity without using a beta? I'd like to stay away from dividend models due to popularity of not paying divdends these days.