RANKING MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE PROJECTS: THE ROLE OF DURATION

This paper develops a new measure of cash-flow timing called “return duration.” Numerically quite close to Macaulay duration, return duration is a straightforward function of a project's net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR). When comparing mutually exclusive projects, differences in return duration can explain ranking conflicts between NPV and IRR. The paper also clarifies the conditions under which a manager should consider duration or generalized NPV before making investment decisions when faced with such ranking conflicts.     

A Simple Method for Calculating the imin Rate for an Investment Project

The i_min rate of an investment project is the smallest rate such that all the intermediate balances of the project have the same sign or ore null. This rate is mainly used to determine whether an investment project is a pure or a mixed investment project. In this technical note we point out that as i_min is the greatest internal rate of return among the ones of pure truncated projects and since no eventual mixed truncated project can have a root with a value greater or equal to i_min , we then can easily obtain i_min by appropriate use of standard internal rate of return computing routines.     

Average Internal Rate of Return and Investment Decisions: A New Perspective

The internal rate of return (IRR) is often used by managers and practitioners for investment decisions. Unfortunately, it has serious flaws: (1) multiple real-valued IRRs may arise; (2) complex-valued IRRs may arise; (3) the IRR is, in general, incompatible with the net present value (NPV) in accept/reject decisions; (4) the IRR ranking is, in general, different from the NPV ranking; (5) the IRR criterion is not applicable with variable costs of capital. The efforts of economists and management scientists in providing a reliable project rate of return have generated over the decades an immense bulk of contributions aiming to solve these shortcomings. This article offers a complete solution to this long-standing unresolved issue by changing the usual perspective: the IRR equation is dismissed and the evaluator is allowed to describe the project as an investment or a borrowing at his discretion. This permits showing that any arithmetic mean of the one-period return rates implicit in a project reliably informs about a project's profitability and correctly ranks competing projects. With such a measure, which we call average internal rate of return, complex-valued numbers disappear and all the above-mentioned problems are wiped out. The economic meaning is compelling: it is the project return rate implicitly determined by the market. The traditional IRR notion may be found as a particular case.     

对“全投资现金流量表”的修改意见

《建设项目经济评价方法与参数》已使用8年多,其对全投资现金流量表和内部收益率和净现值的现定存在一定问题,建议将全投资现金流量表改称项目现金流量表,并在现金汉出项中增加一项利息支出等。     

煤电一体化项目财务评价指标比分析

以彬长-国网能源煤电一体化项目为研究背景,提出财务指标比的概念,即煤电一体化投资项目财务指标与煤、电项目分开投资财务指标之间的比值。通过对两种项目投资方式的财务内部收益率、财务净现值、投资回收期及贷款偿还期4个主要财务评价指标比值计算分析,得出煤电一体化项目投资相较于煤、电项目分开投资指标比R{R}IRR,RNPV,RPt,RId中:RIRR,RNPV的值大于1;RPt,RId的值小于1,煤电一体化项目投资比煤、电项目分开投资在财务盈利能力、抗风险能力强,煤电一体化项目投资方案比煤、电项目分开投资方案好。     

Is There A “New” Internal Rate of Return Literature?

Recent writing in various real estate journals appears to have become interested in an issue which a number of other journals have treated previously. Specifically, the concept known as the internal rate of return (IRR) has been examined extensively by the literatures of business finance, management science, and economic theory. This paper surveys and reviews the literature by problem, journal and date. The paper concludes that this demonstration suggests the necessity of an understanding of literature in related disciplines as well as our own.     

东北某探区油页岩资源开发项目经济评价

油页岩资源经济评价的主要任务是评价油页岩开发建设项目的经济可行性,常用的评价方法有静态法和动态法两种,关键指标有财务内部收益率、投资回收期、净现值和现值指数等。文章以东北某探区油页岩开发项目为例,采用动态评价方法对该项目的经济可行性进行了研究,并具体介绍了相关指标的选取方法,对于提高油页岩开发项目经济评价的准确性和决策效率有一定的参考作用。     

试论自有资金内部收益率与资本结构之关系

从投资收益率和内部收益率的定义出发，阐明二者之间的关系，从而计算出在不同的资本结构和不同的贷款利率条件下，待定投资项目的自有资金内部收益率。     

PPP项目公司的股权结构及其在某养老项目中的应用

PPP项目的发起人一般以股东身份设立项目公司作为项目的实施载体,通过整理项目融资和公司治理等股权结构的相关研究成果,分析国内外8个典型PPP实际项目,发现项目公司股权结构是影响项目实施效率的重要因素,主要股东通常具有专业化、短期利益或长期战略等特点,项目公司股东权益合理变化有利于公司应对PPP项目的阶段性风险、提升公司价值。针对某社会养老机构PPP项目的股权结构设计分析,进一步探讨股权结构设计和调整在PPP项目中的具体操作方法和应用价值,可为政府解决公共产品和服务供给紧缺的矛盾、为大中型企业开发类似PPP项目提供参考。     

COST EFFECTIVENESS— The Economic Evaluation of Engineered Systems Edited by J. Morley English John Wiley and Sons,Inc.

In this case study four actual energy efficiency projects are analyzed with two traditional engineering economy capital budgeting methods - internal rate of return and payback period - and the results compared with those obtained using the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). The alternative scenarios of the future states-of-the-world necessary for the latter are based on information available in Department of Energy reports. The traditional and CAPM approaches result in different economic conclusions for some of the projects. These differences are analyzed and the implications for certain types of improvement projects and equipment replacement problems as well as financial decision-making in general are discussed.     

2006 IIE-EED Business Meeting Minutes

The duration measure of weighted average life has been applied in the capital budgeting literature as a measure of project liquidity. Duration is superior to payback methods because it considers both the timing and present value of the entire cash flow stream. However, the literature is ambivalent on the choice of discount rate in calculating project duration. For duration to properly serve as a project liquidity measure, the internal rate of return should be used to discount future cash flows. Examples show that using the firm's cost of capital to calculate duration fails to measure the time to recover initial project outlays in present value dollars.     

Valuation of projects with minimum revenue guarantees: A Gaussian copula–based simulation approach

This technical note presents a numerical simulation technique to perform valuations of infrastructure projects with minimum revenue guarantees (MRG). It is assumed that the project cash flows—in the absence of the MRG—can be described in a probabilistic fashion by means of a very general multivariate distribution function. Then, the Gaussian copula (a numerical algorithm to generate vectors according to a prespecified probabilistic characterization) is used in combination with the MRG condition to generate a set of plausible cash flow vectors. These vectors form the basis of a Monte Carlo simulation that offers two important advantages: it is easy to implement and it makes no restrictive assumptions regarding the evolution of the cash flows over time. Thus, one can estimate the distribution of a broad set of metrics (net present value, internal rate of return, payback periods, etc.). Additionally, the method does not have any of the typical limitations of real options–based approaches, namely, cash flows that follow a Brownian motion or some specific diffusion process or whose volatility needs to be constant. The usefulness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a simple example.     

Call Options and Liquidation in Commercial Mortgage Financing

This paper models a commercial real estate project where a wealth-constrained manager uses outside debt financing to purchase a project who's return depends on future economic conditions and the manager's investment in the project. It is shown that it is inefficient to finance the project with callable debt. This prediction is consistent with observed real estate financing practice. I also model the outcome of financial distress allowing for (1) debt forgiveness, (2) equity in exchange for debt forgiveness, and (3) foreclosure. The model motivates (1) why commercial real estate loans are often foreclosed, and (2) why lenders foreclose assets at fire-sale prices.     

Qualitative aspects of the evaluation and control of research and development projects

Decisions in research and development are usually based on a variety of data inputs. Some of these will be concerned with the returns offered by projects in money terms. Others will relate to more qualitative aspects of research work such as, perhaps, the establishment of a base in a new area of technology or the achievement of a stronger market position. This paper describes and illustrates how checklists may be used to assemble qualitative data for purposes of decision. These were formulated in an industrial R & D laboratory and the illustrative examples in the text make reference to real projects. The checklists described are an integral part of a comprehensive system of project evaluation and control in R & D which includes an analysis of the financial implications using net present value or discounted cash flow rate of return of the project risk, analysis and sensitivity tests. The detail of this part of the scheme is conventional and is therefore omitted from the paper.     

Analogies of Cash Flow Concepts

Several different procedures for the implementation of the internal rate of return criterion are presented in the literature on investment projects evaluation. Taking the net present worth criterion as a basis for comparison, a survey of some of the suggested procedures and a critique of their theoretical basis are presented. It is showed that, although leading to a proper evaluaticn, they are internally inconsistent in the sense of incorporating modifications that may not really be necessary. To circumvent this possibility, we are going to suggest a conceptual algorithm that should be implemented if we are concerned with the formal application of the internal rate of return criterion.     

R & D and the company's requirements

Numerous models have been put forward in the literature for the selection and evaluation of projects, many of which are based on optimizing the return on investment by the company in R & D projects. This is a noble aim but in practice the financial data available are often of dubious accuracy and so many other factors are involved in actually adopting a portfolio of selected projects that project selection often becomes a theoretical exercise. It is suggested that the selection of projects is in essence the adoption of a strategy which is within the policy and long-term aims of the company and also within the policy and scientific development of the R & D part of the company. Such a strategy is usually sub-optimum for both the company and the R & D division, as it is a compromise between a desire for high pay-back investments by the company and the maintenance of a scientifically balanced R & D involving some long-term, unknown return, investments. A method is currently being experimented with by Unilever Research which illustrates where conflicts arise between the policy of the main company and that of research, and assists management in arriving at a strategy which most closely fulfils the needs of both policies. Both the concept of the method and its practical use are described in this paper.     

Shared knowledge and product design glitches in integrated product development

Product development processes based on the joint collaboration of the cross-functional team, suppliers, and customers can minimize project glitches. Glitches in the product development project can cause project cost over-runs and delay a project past when first mover advantages are possible. While previous theoretical work has suggested a negative relationship between shared knowledge and product development glitches, empirical studies have not identified how different types of shared knowledge are associated with each other and the design glitches. This study proposes a model of the relationship between specific types of shared knowledge and design glitches in integrated product development (IPD) projects. We test our model using a sample of 191 projects from the automotive industry in the United States. The major findings were that: (1) shared knowledge of the development process can be built by improving a team's shared knowledge of customers, suppliers, and internal capabilities, (2) shared knowledge of the development process for a project reduces product design glitches, and (3) reduced product design glitches improve product development time, cost, and customer satisfaction.     

A review of: “ENGINEERING ECONOMICS” by James L. Riggs,McGraw-Hill Book Company: New York, 1977, 609 pages, $19.50 list.

The relevance of corporate investment decisions lies in their impact on shareholder wealth. It not only depends on the investment project but also on the corporate dynamics that turns it into the sequence of shareholders’ capital contributions, dividends, and gross terminal value that constitutes the shareholders’ investment project (SIP). We develop a model to calculate the SIP cash flows and the values of its interim capitals following the average internal rate of return (AIRR) paradigm. The shareholders’ final value depends on two reinvestment rates that, respectively, capture the returns obtained by the retained cash flows and the dividends reinvested by shareholders. On this basis, we approach the analysis of value creation combining both reinvestment rates in the shareholders’ net present value (SNPV). This model enables us to obtain the AIRR of the SIP and a variant of it, the equity growth rate that embeds the impact of internal and external reinvestment on the shareholders’ final value.     

Optimizing the capital rationing decision with uncertain returns

In this article, we develop a new optimization model for capital rationing with uncertain project returns. Our model maximizes the probability of meeting a predefined target return by selecting a feasible set of projects subject to budget constraints in multiple time periods. We employ a mixed-integer nonlinear algorithm recently developed in the optimization field to solve the resulting nonconvex optimization problem to optimality. Our model and solution methods are tested and validated through a comprehensive computational experiment. Several managerial insights are obtained about the impact of available budget and target return on the optimal solutions. Notably, we have found that increasing target return may not necessarily result in an increase in optimal total expected return of the selected projects. Our model and solution method offer a unified and computationally tractable approach to precisely quantify the tradeoff between project returned and risk.     

Irrigation potential and investment return in Kenya

The potential for irrigation investments in Kenya is highly dependent upon geographical, agronomic and economic factors that need to be taken into account when assessing the long-term viability and sustainability of planned projects. This study analyzed large dam-based and small-scale irrigation potential and investment needs for Kenya based on agronomic, hydrological, and economic factors. The analysis of small-scale irrigation expansion shows that the potential for investment in small-scale projects in Kenya ranges from 54,000 ha to 241,000 hectares, with an internal rate of return from 17% to 32%. For the dam-based investment analysis, under low-cost assumption, 58 dams of 73 are profitable (IRR > 0). At high cost level, the number is 52. If we raise the IRR cutoff value to 12%, 32 dams are economically feasible. We showed that there is considerable scope for the expansion of both dam-based and small-scale irrigation in Kenya, and we also provided a strategic prioritization for investments in irrigation schemes and projects.