What Fraction of a Capital Investment is Sunk Cost?

In order to determine to what extent capital investments are sunk costs this study deals with salvage values of discarded metalworking machinery. Even though these assets are expected to be non-specific many of the discarded assets are scrapped rather than sold on second-hand markets. Econometric results suggests that firms can only expect to get back 20-50 percent of the initial price for a "new" machine once it is installed. The results also show differences in value-age profiles across firms, but give only weak support for the hypothesis that salvage values are particularly low in recessions.