IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tkk/dpaper/dp4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Irreversible Investment, Incremental Capital Accumulation, and Price Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Luis H.R. Alvarez E.

    (Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods in Management, Turku School of Economics)

Abstract

We consider optimal incremental capital accumulation in the presence of investment irreversibility and general price uncertainty. We present a set of general conditions under which the optimal capital accumulation path can be explicitly characterized in terms of an ordinary threshold rule stating that investment is optimal whenever the underlying price exceeds a capital-dependent threshold. We also present a set of general conditions under which increased price volatility expands the region where investment is suboptimal and decreases both the expected cumulative present value of the marginal revenue product of capital and the value of the future expansion options.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis H.R. Alvarez E., 2006. "Irreversible Investment, Incremental Capital Accumulation, and Price Uncertainty," Discussion Papers 4, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ace-economics.fi/kuvat/ACE4%20Alvarez.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew B. Abel & Avinash K. Dixit & Janice B. Eberly & Robert S. Pindyck, "undated". "Options, the Value of Capital, and Investment," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 15-95, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    2. Alvarez, Luis H R & Koskela, Erkki, 2003. "On Forest Rotation under Interest Rate Variability," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(4), pages 489-503, August.
    3. Andrew B. Abel & Janice C. Eberly, 1996. "Optimal Investment with Costly Reversibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(4), pages 581-593.
    4. Ingersoll, Jonathan E, Jr & Ross, Stephen A, 1992. "Waiting to Invest: Investment and Uncertainty," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(1), pages 1-29, January.
    5. Ricardo J. Caballero & John V. Leahy, 1996. "Fixed Costs: The Demise of Marginal q," NBER Working Papers 5508, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dixit, Avinash, 1995. "Irreversible investment with uncertainty and scale economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 327-350.
    7. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    8. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    9. Pindyck, Robert S, 1988. "Irreversible Investment, Capacity Choice, and the Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 969-985, December.
    10. Alvarez, Luis H. R. & Koskela, Erkki, 2005. "Wicksellian theory of forest rotation under interest rate variability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 529-545, March.
    11. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    12. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1999. "Aggregate investment," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 813-862, Elsevier.
    13. Anders ûksendal, 2000. "Irreversible investment problems," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 223-250.
    14. Andrew B. Abel & Avinash K. Dixit & Janice C. Eberly & Robert S. Pindyck, 1996. "Options, the Value of Capital, and Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 753-777.
    15. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1998. "Irreversible investment," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-37, March.
    16. Luis H. R. Alvarez & Erkki Koskela, 2006. "Irreversible Investment under Interest Rate Variability: Some Generalizations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(2), pages 623-644, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Luis Alvarez, 2010. "Irreversible capital accumulation under interest rate uncertainty," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 72(2), pages 249-271, October.
    2. Alvarez, Luis H.R., 2011. "Optimal capital accumulation under price uncertainty and costly reversibility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1769-1788, October.
    3. Luis H. R. Alvarez & Erkki Koskela, 2006. "Irreversible Investment under Interest Rate Variability: Some Generalizations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(2), pages 623-644, March.
    4. Luis H. R. Alvarez & Erkki Koskela, 2002. "Irreversible Investment under Interest Rate Variability: New Results," CESifo Working Paper Series 640, CESifo.
    5. Dias, José Carlos & Shackleton, Mark B., 2011. "Hysteresis effects under CIR interest rates," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 211(3), pages 594-600, June.
    6. Hanno Dihle, 2015. "Real Options in a Ramsey style Growth Model," Discussion Paper Series 32, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Dec 2015.
    7. Serven, Luis, 1997. "Uncertainty, instability, and irreversible investment : theory, evidence, and lessons for Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1722, The World Bank.
    8. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2002. "Patents, Real Options and Firm Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 97-116, March.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1046 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Sels, A.T.H., 2006. "Foreign direct investment as an entry mode. An application in emerging economies," Other publications TiSEM 583ca9b5-1691-425d-8f77-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Frank Silvio Marzano & Enrico Saltari, 1999. "Modern Theories of Investment Decisions A Critical Assessment," Working Papers 57, Sapienza University of Rome, CIDEI.
    12. Shibata, Takashi & Wong, Kit Pong, 2019. "Investment under uncertainty with variable costly reversibility," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 14-28.
    13. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1998. "Expandability, Reversibility, and Optimal Capacity Choice," NBER Working Papers 6373, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Carlo Scarpa & Paolo Panteghini, 2001. "Incentives to (Irreversible) Investments Under Different Regulatory Regimes," CESifo Working Paper Series 417, CESifo.
    15. Richard Hartman & Michael Hendrickson, 1999. "Optimal Partially Reversible Investment," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 0032, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
    16. Jonathan B. Berk, 1998. "A Simple Approach for Deciding When to Invest," NBER Working Papers 6678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Lin, Xiaoji & Wang, Chong & Wang, Neng & Yang, Jinqiang, 2018. "Investment, Tobin’s q, and interest rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 620-640.
    18. Hjalmar Böhm & Michael Funke & Nikolaus A. Siegfried, 1999. "Discovering the Link between Uncertainty and Investment - Microeconometric Evidence from Germany," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 19906, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    19. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2020. "How much did uncertainty shocks matter in the Great Depression?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(2), pages 283-323, May.
    20. Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2000. "Continuous‐Time Methods in Finance: A Review and an Assessment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1569-1622, August.
    21. Bulan, Laarni & Mayer, Christopher & Somerville, C. Tsuriel, 2009. "Irreversible investment, real options, and competition: Evidence from real estate development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 237-251, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price uncertainty; irreversible investment; incremental capital accumulation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    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:tkk:dpaper:dp4. 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: Susmita Baulia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tukkkfi.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.