This paper aims to provide a foundation for the notion of economic rate of return and investigate its relations with accounting rates of return. Introducing the notion of depreciation class (the set of depreciation schedules with the same aggregate book value) it is shown that the mean of the...

The Net Present Value maximizing model has a respectable ancestry and is considered by most scholars a theoretically sound decision model. In real-life applications, decision makers use the NPV rule, but apply a subjectively determined hurdle rate, as opposed to the allegedly correct opportunity...

The internal rate of return (IRR) is often used by managers and practitioners for investment decisions. Unfortunately, it has serious flaws: (i) multiple real-valued IRRs may arise, (ii) complex-valued IRRs may arise, (iii) the IRR is, in general, incompatible with the net present value (NPV) in...

Textbooks on corporate finance and budgeting and forecasting recommend 'closing' the financial statements using what is known as a plug. A plug is a formula to match the Balance Sheet (BS) using differences in some items listed in it in such a way that the accounting equation holds. This is...

This teaching note shows the relationship between levered and unlevered betas and the general formulation for the cost of equity. It also shows, step by step, the procedure to estimate betas from data found in the stock market.It shows well known procedures for estimating betas: correlation...

This is a teaching material for a module of Financial analysis at Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar. The educational material was developed with Professor Ricardo Davila from Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. The written material has been modified several times using the feedback from...

This is a teaching material for a module of Financial analysis at Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar. The educational material was developed with Professor Ricardo Davila from Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. The written material has been modified several times using the feedback from...

This is a teaching material for a module of Financial Analysis at Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar. The educational material was developed with Professor Ricardo Davila from Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. The written material has been modified several times using the feedback from...

This is a teaching material for a module of Financial analysis at Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar. The educational material was developed with Professor Ricardo Davila from Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. The written material has been modified several times using the feedback from...

We derive and present the formula for optimal debt under the assumption that tax shields are discounted at the cost of levered equity, Ke and cash flows are on perpetuity. The formulation is consistent and is derived from basic financial principles. This formulation is valid for non-growing...