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Do We Need CAPM for Capital Budgeting?

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  • Ravi Jagannathan
  • Iwan Meier

Abstract

A key input to the capital budgeting process is the cost of capital. Financial managers most often use the CAPM for estimating the cost of capital for which they need to know the market risk premium. Textbooks advocate using the historical value for the U.S. equity premium as the market risk premium. The CAPM as a model has been seriously challenged in the academic literature. In addition recent research indicates that the true market risk premium might have been as low as half the historical U.S. equity premium during the last two decades. If business finance courses have been teaching the use of the wrong model along with wrong inputs for twenty years, why has no one complained? We provide an answer to this puzzle.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravi Jagannathan & Iwan Meier, 2002. "Do We Need CAPM for Capital Budgeting?," NBER Working Papers 8719, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8719
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    Cited by:

    1. Tor Brunzell & Eva Liljeblom & Mika Vaihekoski, 2013. "Determinants of capital budgeting methods and hurdle rates in Nordic firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(1), pages 85-110, March.
    2. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2005. "Theoretical Flaws In The Use Of The Capm For Investment Decisions," MPRA Paper 6330, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2007.
    3. Da, Zhi & Guo, Re-Jin & Jagannathan, Ravi, 2012. "CAPM for estimating the cost of equity capital: Interpreting the empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 204-220.
    4. Li Gu & Dayong Huang, 2017. "The Effect of the Growth in Labor Hours per Worker on Future Stock Returns, Hiring, and Profitability," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2249-2276.
    5. John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey, 2001. "Expectations of Equity Risk Premia, Volatility and Asymmetry from a Corporate Finance Perspective," NBER Working Papers 8678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ravi Jagannathan & Iwan Meier & Vefa Tarhan, 2011. "The Cross-Section of Hurdle Rates for Capital Budgeting: An Empirical Analysis of Survey Data," NBER Working Papers 16770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Magni, Carlo Alberto, 2007. "Investment decisions, equivalent risk and bounded rationality," MPRA Paper 6073, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Marzo Giuseppe, 2014. "Commentary on “Accounting for Value” by Stephen Penman," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 139-164, July.
    9. Chittenden, Francis & Derregia, Mohsen, 2015. "Uncertainty, irreversibility and the use of ‘rules of thumb’ in capital budgeting," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 225-236.
    10. Paolo M. Panteghini & Michele Moretto, 2007. "Preemption, Start-Up Decisions and the Firms' Capital Structure," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(39), pages 1-14.
    11. Sha, Yezhou & Gao, Ran, 2019. "Which is the best: A comparison of asset pricing factor models in Chinese mutual fund industry," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 8-16.
    12. David J Johnstone, 2023. "Capital budgeting and Kelly betting," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 48(3), pages 625-651, August.
    13. Carlo Alberto Magni, 2007. "Project valuation and investment decisions: CAPM versus arbitrage," Applied Financial Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 137-140.
    14. Kent Baker & Shantanu Dutta & Samir Saadi, 2011. "Corporate Finance Practices in Canada: Where Do We Stand?," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 15(3-4), pages 157-192, September.
    15. Carlo Alberto Magni, 2023. "The Split-Screen Approach for Project Appraisal (Part I: The Theory)," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-49, March.
    16. Ahmed, Shamim & Tsvetanov, Daniel, 2016. "The predictive performance of commodity futures risk factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 20-36.
    17. Antonio E. Bernardo & Bhagwan Chowdhry & Amit Goyal, 2007. "Growth Options, Beta, and the Cost of Capital," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 36(2), pages 1-13, July.
    18. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:39:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Nicos Koussis & Michalis Makrominas, 2015. "Growth options, option exercise and firms’ systematic risk," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 243-267, February.

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