We analyze the optimal hedging policy of a firm that has flexibility in the timing of investment. Conventional wisdom suggests that hedging adds value by alleviating the underinvestment problem associated with capital market frictions. However our model shows that hedging also adds value by...

A problem that often arises in applied finance is one where decision-makers need to choose a value for some parameter that will affect the cash flows between two parties such as a rental rate or an exercise price. Because the values of the cash flows also depend on various unobservable...

In September 2005 the New Zealand Commerce Commission (NZCC) released a document (TheWeighted Average Cost of Capital for Electricity Lines Businesses by Dr Martin Lally referred to as LINES hereafter) that estimates a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for New Zealand electricity lines...

Racehorse trainers operate asset management businesses in which the assets owned by outside clients compete with those owned by managers for the latter's time care and attention. Although this potentially leads to serious conflicts of interest we find no evidence of an agency problem: in a...

Popular investment advice recommends that the stock/bond and stock/wealth ratios should rise with investor risk tolerance and investment horizon respectively prescriptions that are difficult to reconcile with the simple mean-variance model. Canner et al. (1997) point out that the first piece of...

We review the ability of the ex post internal rate of return (IRR) to detect monopoly profits. When market values are used as entry and exit values the ex post IRR simply reveals whether the firm did better or worse than the market expected at the entry date. It says nothing about monopoly...

When interest rates are uncertain the net-present-value threshold required to justify an irreversible investment is increasing in the length of a project's payback period. Thus slowpayback projects should face a higher hurdle than fast-payback projects just as investment folklore suggests. This...

Responsibility for approving proposed transmission investment programmes in New Zealand has recently been placed in the hands of a newly-formed government regulator. In this paper we develop an analytical framework for conceptualising the investment test proposed by this regulator. Our framework...

Racehorse trainers operate unregulated asset management businesses in which the assets owned by outside clients compete with those owned by trainers for the latter’s time, care, and attention. However, market mechanisms appear to deal effectively with the resulting agency problem in situations...

A problem that often arises in applied finance is one where decision-makers need to choose a value for some parameter that will affect the cash flows between two parties involved in the operation of an illiquid asset. Because the values of the cash flows also depend on various unobservable...