Consistent with the cost of raising equity being higher during recessions we expect a negative coefficient on the Recession variable. If smaller delay banks raise more equity during non-recessionary periods to compensate for higher provisioning, then we expect the coefficient on oDelay to be positive. Finally, since smaller delay banks will perform relatively better during recessions, we expect that the increased cost of raising equity during these periods will be lower for these banks and therefore predict a positive coefficient on the Recessionn oDelay variable