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The Engineering Economist is a journal that focuses on data-driven engineering economic models to support capital investment decisions in uncertain economic conditions. The latest issue features articles on various topics. The first article introduces a project valuation framework that incorporates Economic Value Added (EVA) and Market Value Added (MVA) analysis into a binomial tree option pricing model. The second article merges earlier work on valuation and growth expectations with the Average Internal Rate of Return (AIRR) models, simplifying calculations for expected competitive advantage and growth rates. The third article utilizes real options analysis to assess uncertainty in the copper concentrate trading business. The journal publishes original research, case studies, surveys, and reviews related to capital investment problems. [Extracted from the article]

A pure investment is defined here as any transaction where the invested capital is nonnegative at all times during the life of the transaction. This article proves that any transaction whose first non-zero term is negative can be uniquely partitioned into pure investments with strictly decreasing internal rates of return (IRRs). The IRRs of the partitioning transactions put bounds on the IRRs of the original transaction. The partitioning theorem gives a simple characterisation of Arrow/Levhari's results on the optimal truncation of a transaction. The partitioning theorem also has applications to the problem of the optimal time for an investor to sell the remaining terms in a transaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The levelized cost of energy is commonly used in both policymaking and capital investment decisions. It unitizes capital costs by amortizing them over an assumed asset life. The life of the asset is usually assumed to be known with certainty. But in many electric power applications, the life is both uncertain and subject to regulatory shocks. In these cases, the standard levelized cost of energy calculation is incorrect and potentially misleading. We propose a corrected version of this measure using expectation under a probability model for shortened life and show its implications for several investment and policy applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]