I study optimal design of a dynamic capital allocation process in an organization in which the division manager with empire-building preferences privately observes the arrival and properties of investment projects, and headquarters can audit projects at a cost. Under certain conditions, a...

We survey a large sample of Canadian firms to first learn whether they use real options, the types of real options used, and why firms do not use them. Only 36 of the 214 respondents (16.8%) report using real options, which ranks last among nine capital budgeting techniques. The main reason for...

We characterize the optimal dynamic mechanism for capital budgeting and managerial compensation. The division manager privately observes the project productivity at each point in time as well as an initial signal that governs the productivity evolution. We show that the optimal allocation can be...

Using an NPV-based revealed-preference strategy, I find that idiosyncratic risk materially affects the discount rate that firms use in their capital budgeting decisions. I exploit quasi-exogenous within-region variation in project-specific idiosyncratic risk and find that, on average, firms...