Learning by doing,endogenous discounting and economic development

In this paper, we focus on a growth model where the discount rate is decreasing in capital accumulation and endogenous growth is made possible through learning by doing, knowledge accumulation being a by-product of gross investment. In such a model, the utility function has to be restricted to take positive values implying that the elasticity of marginal utility is lower than one. The presence of endogenous discounting generates a steady-state of stagnation which can be saddle-path stable or unstable depending on the marginal productivity of knowledge. In the case of long run growth, the fact that the elasticity of marginal utility is lower than one implies the existence of two asymptotic balanced growth paths: the one with the higher growth rate being a saddle point while the one with the lower growth rate not being a saddle point. We also study the optimal solution which is characterized by a unique balanced growth path. The policy consists as usual in subsidizing investment in order to internalize the externality.     

Franchise bidding,regulation and investment costs

This paper analyzes the design of an optimal monopoly franchise policy when firms incur investment costs. We show how this policy depends on the timing of entry. When the investment cost is a fixed cost or a sunk cost paid after knowing the marginal cost parameter, the optimal policy consists of a Baron-Myerson type pricing rule and a lowest cost awarding rule. When the investment cost is a sunk cost paid before knowing the marginal cost parameter, auctioning the right to serve the market eliminates the need for an incentive regulation: the price is given by the complete information Ramsey formula and the subsidy is a Loeb-Magat type subsidy, while an entry fee yields first best entry.     

Real Options in an Asymmetric Duopoly: Who Benefits from Your Competitive Disadvantage?

This paper analyzes the impact of investment cost asymmetry on the optimal real option exercise strategies and the value of firms in duopoly. Both firms have an opportunity to invest in a project enhancing ( ceteris paribus ) the profit flow. We show that three types of equilibrium strategies exist. Furthermore, we express the critical levels of cost asymmetry delineating the equilibrium regions as functions of basic economic variables. The presence of strategic interactions among the firms leads to counterintuitive results. First, for a certain range of the asymmetry level, a marginal increase in the investment cost of the firm with the cost disadvantage can enhance this firm's own value. Moreover, such a cost increase can reduce the value of the competitor. Finally, we discuss the welfare implications of the optimal exercise strategies and show that the presence of identical firms can result in a socially less desirable outcome than if one of the competitors has a significant cost (dis)advantage.     

Growth option,debt maturity and cash reserves with bank-tax-interaction

In this paper, we assume a small and micro enterprise(SME, henceforth) invests in a project, of which the investment cost is funded by the private lending and the bank-tax-interaction (BTI, henceforth). We build a tractable model of optimal investment, liquidity and default decisions based on cash flows with liquidity shocks and profitability uncertainty. In contrast to the case with pure private lending, we discover that BTI delays investment and increases the firm value. Furthermore, BTI causes the SME to retain more cash reserves. We also find that the SME prefers to select the BTI as the main financing policy under the higher liquidity risk and small profitability uncertainty. Besides, the impact of debt maturity on financial policies with BTI depends on liquidity shock.     

Turnpikes and detours in the renewable resource exploitation under price shocks

In this paper we show that the Averch-Johnson effect of overcapitalization by a regulated monopoly does not obtain when the firm operates in the decreasing cost range of output. We develop a dynamic adjustment-cost model of the firm and apply a recent result by Brock and Dechert for non-concave Hamiltonians to solve for the optimal investment policy for the firm. With a phase diagram analysis we are able to make sharp comparisons between the regulated and unregulated cases. In particular we show that investment by a regulated firm is lower than that of an unregulated firm, even when the rate of return constraint is not binding.     

Optimal Precision of Accounting Information in Debt Financing

This paper studies qualitative characteristics of accounting systems that are used in debt financing. We consider a financially constrained firm that provides to lenders information on the value of assets that serve as collateral in a financing contract for a risky investment project. We find that the investor prefers an accounting system that provides biased signals about the value of assets. This bias adjusts the information content of the signals to maximize the probability of undertaking the project. Under fair value accounting, low book values are more precise measures of actual value than high book values, which is consistent with conditional conservatism. Next, we study accounting risk to study the effect of institutions that govern the financial reporting policy based on the optimal precision. We find that fair value measurement introduces greater accounting risk and is preferred by financially constrained firms to measurement at historical cost.     

Investments in flexible production capacity

We examine the technology and capacity choice problem of a multi-output firm facing stochastic demands in a continuous-time framework. The firm can install output-specific capital, or, at greater cost, flexible capital that can be used to produce different outputs. Investment is irreversible. The firm must choose a technology and decide how much capital to install, knowing it can add more later as demand evolves. We formulate the capacity choice problem as a singular stochastic control problem, show that the value of the firm equals the value of its installed capital plus the value of its options to add capacity in the future, and derive an optimal investment rule that maximizes the firm's market value. We also address the analogous problem for a multi-input firm that faces stochastically evolving factor costs, and can install input-specific or flexible capital.     

From mind to market: A global,dynamic analysis of R&D

Existing models of R&D are not easily reconciled with four observable aspects of R&D: initial technologies (ideas) need to be developed further, only a minority of initial ideas are successfully brought to the market, production and process innovations take place simultaneously (whereby, initially, there is no production at all), and process innovations are implemented for technologies that are destined to leave the market. We present a detailed bifurcation analysis for a dynamic model of R&D that captures these observations in one, unifying framework. As we provide a global analysis, we do not limit initial technologies to carry marginal costs that are below the choke price. We show that there always exists a critical value of initial marginal cost above which the firm does not initiate any (R&D) activity; the path to the saddle-point steady state is never globally optimal. We also sketch some tentative policy implications of our analysis.     

Value and risk dynamics over the innovation cycle

This paper studies investment in intellectual capital and corresponding value and risk dynamics over the innovation cycle. We assume that the innovation cycle consists of three phases, R&D, trial, and market introduction phases. We use a real option investment model to characterize firm value and risk dynamics over the innovation cycle and find that firm value is the sum of the value of assets in place and non-linear option values related to breakthrough, exit, and market introduction options. Firm risk over the innovation cycle is highly non-linear and quite distinct in different phases. During the R&D phase risk is high as the firm faces high operating leverage originating from R&D fixed costs together with technological uncertainty. During the trial phase risk is significantly lower and dominated by option risk to launch the product in the market while after the introduction of the product in the market risk is equivalent to the asset risk of the company. Our model is consistent with the view that positive excess returns of R&D intensive firms are a compensation for risk. Based on this insight we derive several testable predictions.     

Overinvestment in partially relationship-specific assets and R&D

This paper considers a firm that can engage in partially relationship specific investments. The firm does not have the option to engage in investments that are not at all relationship specific. I show that, in such a setting, equilibrium investment may exceed the socially optimal level. This is contrary to the intuition obtained from standard idiosyncratic (i.e., relationship-specific) investment models, in which the possibility of “hold-up” leads to underinvestment. The driving force behind this result is that when assets are only partially relationship-specific, marginal investment may yield higher benefits when transacting with the market at large even though cumulative investment yields higher benefits within a bilateral relationship. This finding is relevant to many bilateral relationships in which investments that are targeted to improve the joint payoff of the relationship inevitably have spillover effects that improve the payoff of transacting with the market.     

Financing constraints and the use of performance-sensitive debt

Performance-sensitive debt (PSD) is a popular financial instrument in the corporate private debt market. In a real-options setting, this paper aims to clarify how PSD impacts on investment policy, capital structure, and agency cost of financing constraints when the firm faces the upper limit of debt issuance. We show that the constrained leverage hardly depends on the performance sensitivity. In particular, our conclusions predict that PSD can decrease the severity of financing constraints relative to the fixed-coupon debt case and the loss of firm value arising from investment and financing distortions due to the presence of financing constraints. The higher the performance sensitivity, the less likely that the firm is financially constrained. These findings provide a novel investment-based explanation for issuance of PSD.     

Real options and contingent convertibles with regime switching

We consider a firm with no assets in place but an option to invest in a project. The investment is irreversible but delayable in a regime-switching economy. The firm issues equity, straight bonds (SBs) and contingent convertibles (CoCos). We provide the closed-form prices for the firm׳s securities and the pricing and timing of the option. Our numerical analyses discover that issuing CoCos instead of SBs induces much less agency cost of debt. The agency cost is higher in a boom economy than in recession but the difference is small. There is a unique CoCos׳ conversion ratio such that the agency cost arrives at the minimum value zero. The inefficiencies arising from asset substitution and debt overhang are much more significant in recession than in boom. Only if the conversion ratio is not too small, the two inefficiencies disappear during boom periods. While the effects of the conversion rate on optimal capital structure and firm value and those of supervision and jump intensity on optimal CoCos׳ coupon are ambiguous and weak, the stricter the supervision or the longer the economy remains in recession, the less the option value and the optimal SBs׳ coupon.     

Firm value,managerial confidence,and investments: The case of China

The purpose of this article is to test empirically the impact of Chinese managerial confidence on firm value through investment decisions. We use a simultaneous equation model, which treats firm value, investments, and managerial confidence as endogenous to the firm. With a sample of 329 Chinese listed firms and a confidence measure based on management shareholding, the 3SLS regression results show significant interactions among the three variables. Firm value has a positive impact on managerial confidence while the latter's impact on the former turns from positive to negative at a certain point. The results suggest a non‐monotonic relationship between managerial self‐confidence and firm value and imply an optimal level of managerial confidence. Therefore, while the leader selection process encourages confident talents to become decision‐makers, proper measures are required to prevent the confidence transformed into overconfidence.     

企业成长性、CEO财务专长与企业价值

中国有一个成语叫"南橘北枳",意思是同一个物种在不同的生长环境下会表现出不同的性状.举一反三,企业管理者的才能是否也会因为组织环境的差异而发挥不同的作用?本文结合企业的成长性水平,从投资行为和成本管控的视角,系统分析与检验了CEO财务专长对企业价值的影响.研究结果显示,对于高成长性企业,财务出身的CEO会抑制企业的投资水平,易错失投资机会,有损企业价值;而对于低成长性企业,CEO的财务专长则有助于企业实现成本领先,提升企业价值.路径检验发现,对于高成长性企业,CEO的财务专长对企业价值的影响存在部分的投资水平路径;对于低成长性企业,CEO的财务专长对企业价值的影响存在部分的成本管控路径.进一步研究发现,CEO财务专长对企业投资水平、企业价值的抑制作用,只存在于具备高成长性的国有企业之中;成长性水平降低后,无论是国有企业还是民营企业,具有财务专长的CEO均能够显著提高企业成本管控水平,促进企业价值上升.     

When the principal knows better than the agent: Subjective evaluations as an optimal disclosure mechanism

When the firm has some private and unverifiable information about an employee’s ability, it can design a subjective evaluation mechanism, whereby payments are tied to evaluations, to communicate such information. In this paper, I investigate how to design an optimal disclosure mechanism for the firm. I characterize the firm’s optimal disclosure policy as a function of the worker’s ability distribution, with the hazard rate function playing a key role. I also demonstrate that with some reasonable restrictions on the ability distribution, the firm’s optimal strategy exhibits a particular pattern: it will reward the best workers aggressively, fire the worst ones, and assign one central rating to the rest. The predictions are consistent with the way firms utilize subjective evaluations in reality.     

Optimal Two‐part Pricing under Cost Uncertainty

This paper examines the optimal two‐part pricing under cost uncertainty. We consider a risk‐averse monopolistic firm that is subject to a cost shock to its constant marginal cost of production. The firm uses two‐part pricing to sell its output to a continuum of heterogeneous consumers. We show that the global and marginal effects of risk aversion on the firm's optimal two‐part pricing are to raise the unit price and lower the fixed payment. We further show that an increase in the fixed cost of production induces the firm to raise (lower) the unit price and lower (raise) the fixed payment under decreasing (increasing) absolute risk aversion. The firm's optimal two‐part pricing is unaffected by changes in the fixed cost under constant absolute risk aversion. Finally, we show that a mean‐preserving spread increase in cost uncertainty induces the firm to raise the unit price and lower the fixed payment under either decreasing or constant absolute risk aversion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uncertain dynamics,correlation effects,and robust investment decisions

We analyze a firm׳s investment problem when the dynamics of project value and investment cost are uncertain. We provide an explicit solution using a robust method for an ambiguity averse firm taking this into account. Ambiguity aversion regarding a common risk factor impacts differently than ambiguity aversion regarding investment cost residual risk. Correlation between project value and investment cost matters; ambiguity aversion regarding common risk can decrease the investment probability only if correlation is positive. Ambiguity aversion regarding residual risk always increases the investment probability. When only project value is risky, volatility can monotonically decrease the investment threshold; this does not hold with the multiple prior method.     

Optimal regulation of technical progress in natural monopolies with asymmetric information

The focus of this paper is to characterize regulatory mechanisms for natural monopolies to provide for optimal technical progress when information is asymmetric. We model a Bayesian-Nash game where the monopolist has private knowledge of the cost-reducing effects of R&D investment to generate process innovations. In the first case, a price-regulated, profit-maximizing firm whose R&D level is unobservable sets its R&D level efficiently to maximize profits at the output level chosen by the firm. However, the level of technical progress achieved by the firm in this case is too high from the regulator's point of view since, in the second-best regulated solution of interest, the regulator has to provide for the R&D expenditures, assumed sunk, as well as for information rents transferred to the firm. In a second case, it can be shown that if the regulator can observe and set limits on the firm's investment in R&D, social welfare is improved, even though the regulated investment level is no longer efficient at the output level chosen by the firm. The reason for the welfare improvement is that losses in consumer surplus due to a decrease in output and an increase in the price are offset by a decrease in information rents and R&D costs transferred, causing the social costs of public funds to fall. Received: 31 July 1994 / Accepted: 15 January 1999     

Investment timing decisions under threat of potential competition: Why firm size matters

We study the value of the option to wait when other firms are looking at similar opportunities and may enter while one firm is waiting for uncertainty resolution. There are two important results. First the value of an investment project is affected by a firm’s assets-in-place, giving some firms a comparative advantage in competitive situations. Second, when two firms with different sized assets-in-place are looking at similar investment decisions, in the unique sub-game perfect equilibrium, the smaller firm invests earlier and also exits before a competing firm with larger assets-in-place. This makes an otherwise identical investment more valuable for the smaller firm. The larger firm optimally foregoes first-mover advantage because of higher expected exit costs.