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The irreversibility premium

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  • Chirinko, Robert S.
  • Schaller, Huntley

Abstract

When investment is irreversible, theory suggests that firms will be "reluctant to invest." This reluctance creates a wedge between the discount rate guiding investment decisions and the standard Jorgensonian user cost (adjusted for risk). We use the intertemporal tradeoff between benefits and costs of changing the capital stock to estimate this wedge, which we label the irreversibility premium. Estimates are based on panel data for the period 1980-2001. The large dataset allows us to estimate the effects of limited resale markets, low depreciation rates, high uncertainty, and negative industry-wide shocks on the irreversibility premium. Our estimates provide a readily interpretable measure of the importance of irreversibility and document that the irreversibility premium is both economically and statistically significant.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Monetary Economics.

Volume (Year): 56 (2009)
Issue (Month): 3 (April)
Pages: 390-408

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Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:3:p:390-408

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566

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Keywords: Irreversibility Investment Non-convex adjustment costs;

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Andrea Caggese, 2003. "Testing financing constraints on firm investment using variable capital," Economics Working Papers 1009, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Aug 2006.
  2. Robert S. Chirinko & Huntley Schaller, 2008. "The Irreversibility Premium," CESifo Working Paper Series 2265, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Sai Ding & Alessandra Guariglia & John Knight, 2010. "Investment and financing constraints in China: does working capital management make a difference?," Working Papers 2010_03, Durham University Business School.
  4. Ciaran Driver & Paul Temple & Giovanni Urga, 2005. "Contrasts Between Classes of Assets in Fixed Investment Equations as a Way of Testing Real Option Theory," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0805, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
  5. Elena Bontempi & Roberto Golinelli & Giuseppe Parigi, 2007. "Why demand uncertainty curbs investment: Evidence froma a panel of Italian manufacturing firms," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 621, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  6. Konstantinos Drakos, 2006. "A note on uncertainty and investment across the spectrum of irreversibility," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(13), pages 873-876.
  7. Robert S. Chirinko & Debdulal Mallick, 2008. "The Marginal Product of Capital: A Persistent International Puzzle," CESifo Working Paper Series 2399, CESifo Group Munich.
  8. Ulf von Kalckreuth, 2003. "Exploring the role of uncertainty for corporate investment decisions in Germany," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 139(II), pages 173-206, June.
  9. Drakos, Konstantinos & Goulas, Eleftherios, 2006. "Investment and conditional uncertainty: The role of market power, irreversibility, and returns-to-scale," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 169-175, November.
  10. Gianluca Femminis, 2012. "Risk aversion heterogeneity and the investment-uncertainty relationship," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Teoria Economica e Metodi Quantitativi itemq1260, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
  11. Alessandra Guariglia & John Tsoukalas & Serafeim Tsoukas, . "Investment, irreversibility, and financing constraints in transition economies," Discussion Papers 10/03, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.

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