Economic value added (EVA) is the performance metric bound to be biased by design. The measurement bias comes from contrasting NOPAT, which is a purely operating profit, with the capital charge on the money investors have put into the firm, which is calculated by applying the after tax WACC...

Taking a slightly closer look at the EVA basics prompts that the metric by design is a synthetic mixture of returns from the operating and financing activities, and therefore, yields a biased assessment of both the operating and overall performance. Fundamentally, the scale of the measurement...

This article introduces a new financial metric for managerial performance evaluation, Value Added to Invested Capital (VAIC), with the cost of unlevered equity as a hurdle rate to calculate the capital charge rather than the widely accepted WACC. VAIC preserves all positive features of the...

In this teaching note, we discuss the basic principles for tariff setting. Tariff setting is very important for regulated industries, such as water and power. The tariff should provide an appropriate risk-adjusted return to the investor. If the tariff were too low, then the investors would not...

Debt financing with subsidizes interest rate has a multidimensional impact on the firm. Value of the levered equity, value of the debt and overall firm value will be different of those values with debt financing at market rate. Subsidized interest rate on debt does not create any additional cash...

We argue that the Economic Value Added (EVA) is biased by design and will generally yield distorted assessment of both the operating and overall performance. Fundamentally, the scale of measurement bias depends on the interest tax shield actually obtained in a measurement period and on a book to...

In this rejoinder, we note that the complaint against the classic FCF WACC is misplaced because it incorrectly identifies the real source of the problem. The fault for the discrepancies, dear colleagues, lies not in the classic formulation of the FCF WACC. The real reason for the discrepancies...

A common procedure for determining the cost of capital for capital investment decisions involves adjusting an unlevered beta for the risk of financial leverage. This note demonstrates that a widespread practice of levering the beta coefficients using the formula of Hamada implies a possibility...

Taking a slightly closer look at the EVA basics prompts that the metric by design is a synthetic mixture of returns from the operating and financing activities, and therefore, yields a biased assessment of both the operating and overall performance. Fundamentally, the scale of the measurement...

We demonstrate analytically and illustrate with examples that the conventional measures of the residual operating income such as the Economic Value Added (EVA) are biased by design and so may yield a misleading assessment of financial performance. Fundamentally, the magnitude of the measurement...