Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources

This article examines the role of corporate headquarters in allocating scarce resources to competing projects in an internal capital market. Unlike a bank, headquarters has control rights that enable it to engage in “winner-picking”—the practice of actively shifting funds from one project to another. By doing a good job in the winner-picking dimension, headquarters can create value even when it cannot help at all to relax overall firm-wide credit constraints. The model implies that internal capital markets may sometimes function more efficiently when headquarters oversees a small and focused set of projects.     

区间数信息下的风险投资群决策评价研究

随着中国风险投资行业不断扩张,为了避免高风险,需要多位决策人员共同参与投资项目的评价。而决策人员面对复杂系统更适合以区间数给出评价。本文提出风险投资的3个评价指标,运用粒子群算法集结区间数信息,构建群决策全局最优偏好矩阵,采用可能度矩阵和排序向量法确定次序。最后的应用研究结果表明,该方法具有一定的可行性和科学性,有利于风险投资项目评价的发展。     

Pension Regulation,Firm Borrowing,and Investment Risk

This article builds a new model of capital structure and nonpension investment decisions to show that regulatory and investment incentives created by accrued pension obligations exacerbate traditional agency problems between stockholders and bondholders. The article identifies conditions under which firms with accrued pension liabilities have an incentive to choose an overly risky capital structure, invest in risky projects with negative net present value, and/or under-fund their pension accounts.     

CAPM for estimating the cost of equity capital: Interpreting the empirical evidence

We argue that the empirical evidence against the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) based on stock returns does not invalidate its use for estimating the cost of capital for projects in making capital budgeting decisions. Because stocks are backed not only by projects in place, but also by the options to modify current projects and undertake new ones, the expected returns on stocks need not satisfy the CAPM even when expected returns of projects do. We provide empirical support for our arguments by developing a method for estimating firms' project CAPM betas and project returns. Our findings justify the continued use of the CAPM by firms in spite of the mounting evidence against it based on the cross section of stock returns.     

THE ROLE OF THE PAYBACK PERIOD IN THE THEORY AND APPLICATION OF DURATION TO CAPITAL BUDGETING

The payback period has been a widely used capital budgeting tool in the analysis of capital projects. It has come under criticism for its inablility to consider all the project's flows in a present valued context. The purpose of this article is to present the duration measure in a capital budgeting framework and show how it is related to the payback period. The relationship is shown analytically and empirically. As a result, the payback period assumes a new identity which goes far to overcome the objections historically levied against it.     

The UK Financial Sector and Risk Management in PFI Projects: A Survey

In PFI transactions the private companies which take on the obligation to build and manage a facility usually provide only a small fraction of the project's capital requirements. Most of the capital is borrowed from banks and other financial institutions. This poses challenges to financial services providers which often have to retain untypical residual project risks. This article describes the types of risks faced by financial services providers and the strategies they use to cope with these risks. Given the often politically-sensitive nature of PFI projects, the authors suggest that financial institutions should investigate a broader set of parameters than they do at present, which relate directly to the political economy of PFI projects.     

我国房地产开发企业信托融资研究

房地产业是典型的资金密集型行业,相对于投资项目所需资金而言,房地产企业普遍存在自有资金不足的问题,因此必然要依赖于金融体系的资金支持。然而,现阶段我国房地产开发企业融资模式相对单一,主要依赖银行贷款。本文从房地产开发企业的角度出发,以美国为例分析REITs的发展状况及特点,并在此基础上研究和探讨我国房地产企业信托融资问题。     

Single vs. Multiple Discount Rates: How to Limit “Influence Costs” in the Capital Allocation Process*

Most finance textbooks suggest that companies evaluate investment projects using discount rates that reflect both the debt capacity and the unique risks of the project. In practice, however, companies often use their company‐wide WACC to evaluate such investments because of the difficulty of (and subjectivity involved in) estimating the risk of individual projects, and the potential for managerial bias and influence to distort the estimates. This article proposes a practicable method for calculating the cost of capital that produces different discount rates for investment projects with different risks while minimizing the “influence costs” that arise when managers have discretion in the choice of discount rates. The proposed approach makes use of market information (in the form of the firm‐wide costs of debt and equity), thereby limiting managerial discretion, while typically still providing a good approximation of theoretically correct, project‐specific discount rates. The key to the method's effectiveness is its use of a project's debt capacity to define the capital structure weights, where debt capacity is defined by the amount of debt financing the project will support without lowering the firm's credit rating.     

Strategic capital investment decision-making: A role for emergent analysis tools?: A study of practice in large UK manufacturing companies

The complexity surrounding strategic capital investments present challenges to managers charged with evaluating these projects. In particular over-reliance on financial appraisal tools is thought to bias decision-makers against undertaking strategic projects that are crucial to the development of business capability and innovation. In response to this concern, several emergent analysis tools have been advanced as means to integrate strategic and financial analyses of capital investment projects. This paper examines the use of both conventional financial analysis tools and selected emergent analysis approaches in the capital investment decision-making of large UK manufacturing companies.The findings update previous studies on the use of financial analysis tools, but also examine how their use varies between strategic and non-strategic investment projects and the extent to which emergent analysis tools are impacting decision-making practice. Little evidence emerges of integration between strategic and financial analysis approaches. Financial analysis techniques still dominate the appraisal of all categories of capital investment projects, while risk analysis approaches remain simplistic, even for complex strategic projects. Despite their noted potential for informing strategic investment decisions, the emergent analysis tools barely register in practice. The appraisal of capital projects seems to reflect a ‘simple is best’ philosophy and a commitment to the role of intuition and judgement in assessing how the strategic dimensions of capital investments connect with their financial outcomes.     

Tax-Exempt Debt and the Capital Structure of Nonprofit Organizations: An Application to Hospitals

The availability of tax-exempt financing provides nonprofit (NP) organizations with their own tax-based incentives to issue debt. In this article, we develop a theoretical model in which NPs gain an indirect arbitrage from tax-exempt debt issuance, constrained by: 1) the requirement that fixed investment exceed tax-exempt debt flows (the project financing constraint), and 2) the constraint against share issuance. These constraints cause them to impute tax benefits to projects that afford access to the tax-exempt bond market. Empirical tests indicate that NP hospitals behave as if they have target levels of tax-exempt debt. Debt targeting is constrained by the availability of capital projects, while excess debt capacity stimulates investment.     

Decision Processes, Agency Problems, and Information: An Economic Analysis of Capital Budgeting Procedures

Corporations use a variety of processes to allocate capital.This article studies the benefits and costs of several commonbudget procedures from the perspective of a model with agencyand information problems. Processes that delegate aspects ofthe decision to the agent result in too many projects beingapproved, while processes in which the principal retains theright to reject projects cause the agent to strategically distorthis information about project quality. We show how the choiceof a decision process depends on these two costs, and specificallyon severity of the agency problem, quality of information, andproject risk.     

Entrepreneurs' financing choice between independent and bank-affiliated venture capital firms

This paper analyzes how the affiliation of a venture capital firm affects the deal terms for innovative entrepreneurial ventures. We develop a theory to explain the advantages of independent and bank-affiliated venture capital funds for entrepreneurs. We assume that independent venture capital firms provide better support quality while bank-affiliated firms are less financially constrained. The entrepreneur selects the optimal contract by trading-off these characteristics. The model allows several empirically testable predictions concerning the nature of projects financed by either type of venture capital firm. Entrepreneurs should seek capital from independent or affiliated venture capitalists contingent on the degree of sophistication of their project, their liquidation value, the importance of expected management support, and the remaining time to fundraising.     

The evolution of the application of capital budgeting techniques in enterprises

This study examines the evolution of the application of capital budgeting techniques. Previous studies mostly used cross-sectional inquiries to understand the capital budgeting practices of firms. Only a few researchers have undertaken longitudinal studies to generalise the findings of the individual cross-sectional studies to the wider population and to identify the emerging trends in the use of capital budgeting techniques (CBTs). This longitudinal study surveys 83 studies of capital budgeting practices across firms in India, South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) for the period from 1966 to 2016. The findings show that six capital budgeting techniques, namely, the net present value (NPV), the internal rate of return (IRR), the payback period (PBP), the accounting rate of return (ARR), the return on investment (ROI) and the real option valuation (ROV), are the most popular methods for evaluating capital investments. Of these techniques, the ROV is the least used, and a general lack of familiarity with this technique and its complexity are the most commonly cited reasons for not using it. Another method that is used less than the first four techniques is the ROI. However, this technique is of growing significance and is mainly used in the UK, followed by the USA, South Africa, and India. Firms in the USA and UK have increased their use of the IRR as a primary method for evaluating capital projects and have retained the PBP as an ancillary technique to strengthen the available information when evaluating capital projects. Firms in India and South Africa are increasingly excluding both the PBP and ARR methods and are increasingly using the NPV when evaluating capital investments. Although this development is in line with the theory, it limits the scope of the available information when evaluating capital projects.     

区块链在我国资本市场领域核心场景应用研究

在分析区块链金融行业应用价值及境外经验的基础上,本文立足我国资本市场发展实际,以问题和需求为导向,思考利用区块链规划构建我国资本市场的核心场景应用,包括面向泛金融资产交易的新型基础设施,及以之为基础的统一债券交易平台、交易所场外交易平台、“云链一体化”新型证券信息服务平台、证券监管数据共享平台等。本文建议:一是由金融监管部门统筹建设国家级区块链泛金融新型交易基础设施;二是鼓励可行性较高的区块链应用场景以概念验证项目先行先试;三是加强区块链金融科技投入和相关人才培养;四是重视区块链交流合作和区块链知识产权。     

The effect of external finance on the equilibrium allocation of capital

We develop an equilibrium model to understand how the efficiency of capital allocation depends on outside investor protection and the external financing needs of firms. We show that when capital allocation is constrained by poor investor protection, an increase in firms' external financing needs may improve allocative efficiency by fostering the reallocation of capital from low to high productivity projects. We also find novel empirical support for this prediction.     

Internal versus External Financing: An Optimal Contracting Approach

We study optimal financial contracting for centralized and decentralized firms. Under centralized contracting, headquarters raises funds on behalf of multiple projects. Under decentralized contracting, each project raises funds separately on the external capital market. The benefit of centralization is that headquarters can use excess liquidity from high cash‐flow projects to buy continuation rights for low cash‐flow projects. The cost is that headquarters may pool cash flows from several projects and self‐finance follow‐up investments without having to return to the capital market. Absent any capital market discipline, it is more difficult to force headquarters to make repayments, which tightens financing constraints ex ante. Cross‐sectionally, our model implies that conglomerates should have a lower average productivity than stand‐alone firms.     

Measuring the costs of short-termism

A potential cost of modern capital markets is short-termism, with agents in the financial intermediation chain weighing near-term outcomes too heavily at the expense of longer-term opportunities and thus forgoing valuable investment projects and potential output. This paper sets out an analytical framework and empirical estimates of the potential costs of short-termism arising from distortions to the cost of capital and investment intentions.     

上海自贸区资本项下人民币可兑换的监管

根据上海自贸区“金改40条”方案,上海自贸区将率先试点人民币资本项目可兑换,加快实现人民币完全可自由兑换的步伐。如何在自贸区全面开放资本项目可兑换之后,既保证企业在资本项下便利地运作,又有效地进行监管、防范风险必将是此次“金改”的重中之重。本文通过对比目前区内外和国际上资本项目可兑换的开放程度和风险监控方式,认为在保证便民举措的前提下,自贸区人民币资本项下可兑换的监管核心在于对自由贸易账户FTA的监控。     

Overconfidence and Resistance to Abandoning Unprofitable Capital Budgeting Projects: The Effects of Autonomy,Internal Audit,and Accountability

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of managers' autonomy in choosing a capital budgeting project has on their confidence in managing the project. Furthermore, this study examines the role that internal audit reports and accountability play in mitigating the impact of autonomy on managers' resistance to abandoning unprofitable capital budgeting projects. Building on motivated reasoning theory, we hypothesize and find that managers who are given autonomy to choose their own projects are more confident that their projects will be successful than managers who are assigned the projects by their superiors. This study also shows that internal audit reports and accountability are effective mechanisms for reducing the influence of prior decisions on managers' resistance to abandoning unprofitable projects.