IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v59y2013i4p869-881.html

Multistage Capital Budgeting with Delayed Consumption of Slack

Author

Listed:
  • Stanley Baiman

    (University of Bocconi, 20141 Milan, Italy; and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

  • Mirko S. Heinle

    (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

  • Richard Saouma

    (UCLA Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095)

Abstract

Capital budgeting frequently involves multiple stages at which firms can continue or abandon ongoing projects. In this paper, we study a project requiring two stages of investment. Failure to fund Stage 1 of the investment precludes investment in Stage 2, whereas failure to fund Stage 2 results in early termination. In contrast to the existing literature, we assume that the firm can limit the manager's informational rents with the early termination of the project. In this setting, we find that the firm optimally commits to a capital allocation scheme whereby it forgoes positive net present value (NPV) projects at Stage 1 (capital rationing), whereas at Stage 2, depending on the manager's previous report, it sometimes implements projects with a negative continuation NPV but in other situations forgoes implementing projects with positive continuation NPVs. This paper was accepted by Mary Barth, accounting.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanley Baiman & Mirko S. Heinle & Richard Saouma, 2013. "Multistage Capital Budgeting with Delayed Consumption of Slack," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 869-881, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:59:y:2013:i:4:p:869-881
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1120.1621
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1621
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1621?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim, Doyoung, 2006. "Capital budgeting for new projects: On the role of auditing in information acquisition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 257-270, September.
    2. Anil Arya & John C. Fellingham & Richard A. Young, 1994. "Contract-Based Motivation for Keeping Records of a Manager's Reporting and Budgeting History," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(4), pages 484-495, April.
    3. Bentley W. MacLeod, 2003. "Optimal Contracting with Subjective Evaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 216-240, March.
    4. Gompers, Paul A, 1995. "Optimal Investment, Monitoring, and the Staging of Venture Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1461-1489, December.
    5. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "A Theory of Debt and Equity: Diversity of Securities and Manager-Shareholder Congruence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1027-1054.
    6. Rick Antle & Gary D. Eppen, 1985. "Capital Rationing and Organizational Slack in Capital Budgeting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 163-174, February.
    7. Berg, Joyce E. & Dickhaut, John W. & Kanodia, Chandra, 2009. "The role of information asymmetry in escalation phenomena: Empirical evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 135-147, February.
    8. Kanodia, C & Bushman, R & Dickhaut, J, 1989. "Escalation Errors And The Sunk Cost Effect - An Explanation Based On Reputation And Information Asymmetries," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 59-77.
    9. Antonio E. Bernardo & Hongbin Cai & Jiang Luo, 2009. "Motivating Entrepreneurial Activity in a Firm," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1089-1118, March.
    10. Thomas Pfeiffer & Georg Schneider, 2007. "Residual Income-Based Compensation Plans for Controlling Investment Decisions Under Sequential Private Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 495-507, March.
    11. Steven D. Levitt & Christopher M. Snyder, 1997. "Is No. News Bad News? Information Transmission and the Role of "Early Warning" in the Principal-Agent Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 641-661, Winter.
    12. Antonio E. Bernardo & Hongbin Cai & Jiang Luo, 2009. "Motivating Entrepreneurial Activity in a Firm," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1089-1118.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer & Georg Schneider, 2013. "Multistage Capital Budgeting for Shared Investments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1213-1228, May.
    2. Feng, Felix Zhiyu & Luo, Robin Yifan & Michaeli, Beatrice, 2024. "In search of a unicorn: Dynamic agency with endogenous investment opportunities," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2).
    3. Martin Gregor & Beatrice Michaeli, 2025. "Board bias, information, and investment efficiency," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 1432-1462, June.
    4. Katrin Weiskirchner-Merten, 2020. "Interdependence, participation, and coordination in the budgeting process," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(1), pages 247-274, April.
    5. Xiaojing Meng & Jie Joyce Tian, 2020. "Board Expertise and Executive Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5448-5464, November.
    6. Stanley Baiman & Mirko S. Heinle & Richard Saouma, 2021. "Allocating Resources with Nonmonotonic Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 3239-3253, May.
    7. Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer & Georg Schneider, 2017. "Two-stage capital budgeting, capital charge rates, and resource constraints," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 933-963, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dutta, Sunil & Fan, Qintao, 2012. "Incentives for innovation and centralized versus delegated capital budgeting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 592-611.
    2. Stanley Baiman & Mirko S. Heinle & Richard Saouma, 2021. "Allocating Resources with Nonmonotonic Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 3239-3253, May.
    3. Sandro Brusco & Fausto Panunzi, 2020. "Internal financing, managerial compensation and multiple tasks," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 501-527, December.
    4. Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer & Georg Schneider, 2013. "Multistage Capital Budgeting for Shared Investments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1213-1228, May.
    5. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2009. "Splitting up value: A critical review of residual income theories," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(1), pages 1-22, October.
    6. Katrin Weiskirchner-Merten, 2020. "Interdependence, participation, and coordination in the budgeting process," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(1), pages 247-274, April.
    7. Natarajan Balasubramanian & Mariko Sakakibara, 2023. "Incidence and performance of spinouts and incumbent new establishments: Role of selection and redeployability within parent firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(10), pages 2460-2488, October.
    8. Hoang, Daniel & Gatzer, Sebastian & Ruckes, Martin E., 2018. "The economics of capital allocation in firms: Evidence from internal capital markets," Working Paper Series in Economics 115, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Alan V. S. Douglas, 2003. "Corporate Investment Incentives and Accounting†Based Debt Covenants," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 645-683, December.
    10. Krasteva, Silvana & Sharma, Priyanka & Wagman, Liad, 2015. "The 80/20 rule: Corporate support for innovation by employees," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 32-43.
    11. Stefan ARPING, 2002. "Cannibalization & Incentives in Venture Financing," FAME Research Paper Series rp51, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    12. Kim, Doyoung, 2013. "Delegation of information verification," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 488-500.
    13. Orman, Cuneyt, 2015. "Organization of innovation and capital markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 94-114.
    14. Dongsoo Shin & Sungho Yun, 2014. "Upfront versus staged financing: the role of verifiability," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(6), pages 1069-1078, June.
    15. RAMJI BALAKRISHNAN & DOUGLAS V. DeJONG, 1993. "The Role of Cost Allocations in the Acquisition and Use of Common Resources," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(2), pages 395-414, March.
    16. Bougheas, Spiros & Wang, Tianxi, 2021. "A theory of outside equity: Financing multiple projects," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Wang, Liyuan & Ding, Chuan & Wang, Zhiyu & Zeng, Siyuan, 2025. "Fixed versus dynamic investment: Optimal contracting with competitive entrepreneurs," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    18. SAU, Lino, 2007. "New Pecking Order Financing for Innovative Firms: an Overview," MPRA Paper 3659, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Patricia M. S. Tan, 2000. "Project Termination Decisions, Underinvestment and Overinvestment," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(1), pages 135-170, March.
    20. Martens, Nikolai & Orzen, Henrik, 2021. "Escalating commitment to a failing course of action — A re-examination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:59:y:2013:i:4:p:869-881. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.