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We propose target date funds modified to exploit stock return predictability driven by the variance risk premium. The portfolio rule of these tactical target date funds (TTDFs) is extremely simplified relative to the optimal one, making it easy to implement and to communicate to investors. We show that saving for retirement in TTDFs generates economically large welfare gains, even after we introduce turnover restrictions and transaction costs, and after taking into account parameter uncertainty. This predictability also appears to be uncorrelated with individual household risk, suggesting that households are in a prime position to exploit it. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance.

We present a transit model that, based on automated fare collection and train tracking data, describes pedestrian movements in train stations and vehicle-specific train ridership distributions. Our approach differs from existing models in that we describe on-board passenger dynamics and pedestrian dynamics at stations in a joint framework. We assume that travelers first decide on the train(s) they will take, and then pursue their journey through the network by successively choosing pedestrian paths, waiting positions on platforms, and specific train cars. Travelers explicitly maximize their travel utility. We model how crowding influences their walking speeds, and how it affects travel utility both at stations and on-board. To illustrate the framework, we present a real case study of a major Dutch rail corridor, for which we collect a rich set of passenger, pedestrian and train operation data. We observe a good agreement of model estimates with empirical observations, and discuss the use of the model for various transit-related problems including level-of-service assessment, crowding estimation, transit optimization, and integrated investment appraisal.

Purpose The Stress-Prevention@Work implementation strategy has been demonstrated to be successful in reducing stress in employees. Now, we assess the economic return-on-investment to see if it would make for a favourable business case for employers. Methods Data were collected from 303 health-care workers assigned to either a waitlisted control condition (142 employees in 15 teams) or to Stress-Prevention@Work (161 employees in 15 teams). Main outcome was productivity losses measured using the Trimbos and iMTA Cost questionnaire in Psychiatry. Measurements were taken at baseline, 6, and 12 months post-baseline. Results The per-employee costs of the strategy were €50. Net monetary benefits were the benefits (i.e., improved productivity) minus the costs (i.e., intervention costs) and were the main outcome of this investment appraisal. Per-employee net benefits amounted to €2981 on average, which was an almost 60-fold payout of the initial investment of €50. There was a 96.7% likelihood for the modest investment of €50 to be offset by cost savings within 1 year. Moreover, a net benefit of at least €1000 still has a likelihood of 88.2%. Conclusions In general, there was a high likelihood that Stress-Prevention@Work offers an appealing business case from the perspective of employers, but the employer should factor in the additional per-employee costs of the stress-reducing interventions. Still, if these additional costs were as high as €2981, then costs and benefits would break even. This study was registered in the Netherlands National Trial Register, trial code: NTR5527.

Робота присвячена питанням розробки інвестиційної пропозиції для підприємства. Актуальність даної теми підтверджується тим фактом, що в умовах післявоєнного періоду для вітчизняного бізнесу ключовим джерелом його розвитку буде саме залучення інвестицій. Тому, пріоритетним для сучасного бізнесу, як для об'єкта інвестування, є створення умов, які б зацікавили інвестора вкласти гроші саме в це підприємство. Підґрунтям для такого бізнес-рішення буде рівень інвестиційної привабливості бізнесу. Тому, тематика, що пов’язана з цими аспектами наразі є актуальною. Метою даної роботи є дослідження теоретичних аспектів та розробка конкретної інвестиційної пропозиції на прикладі ПАТ «Ельворті». Дана тема розкрита у таких завданнях дослідження: - Дослідження майнового стану підприємства; - Оцінка інвестиційної привабливості бізнесу; - Розрахунок ефективності проекту.

The use of renewable energy sources, especially wind energy, has been widely developed, mostly during the last decade. The main objective of the present study is to conduct a literature review focused on the evaluation under uncertainty of wind energy investment using the real options approach to find out whether public opposition (NIMBY projects) has been contemplated, and if so, what have been the flexible strategies applied for its intervention. Overall, 97 publications were analyzed, identifying 20 different models or approaches, which were grouped into eight categories: 1. Real options, 2. Optimization, 3. Stochastics, 4. Financial evaluation, 5. Probabilistic, 6. Estimation, 7. Numerical prediction, and 8. Others. The real options approach, present in 32% of the studies, was the most popular. Twenty-eight types of uncertainties were identified, which were grouped, for better analysis, into nine categories. In total, 62.5% of the studies included the price of electricity as a source of uncertainty; 18.8%, the velocity of wind; and 15.6%, the feed-in rates-subsidy. Both random and non-random techniques were applied to assess the real options and to model the uncertainties. When evaluating real options, the Monte Carlo simulation technique was the most preferred, with 16 (51.6%) applications, followed by non-randomized techniques, decision tree, and dynamic programming, with eight (25.8%) applications each. There is a marked tendency to use stochastic processes to model uncertainty, particularly geometric Brownian motion, which was used in 61.3% (19) of the studies in the sample. When searching for “real options AND (nimby OR public opposition)”, no study was found, which shows the possibility of developing research on this aspect to determine its impact on investments in wind energy projects.

This study investigates how companies adjusted their investments in key strategic resources—i.e., their workforce, capital expenditures, R&D, and CSR—in response to the sharp increase in the cost of credit (the “credit crunch”) during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. We compare companies whose long-term debt matured shortly before versus after the credit crunch to obtain (quasi-)random variation in the extent to which companies were hit by the higher borrowing costs. We find that companies that were adversely affected followed a “two-pronged” approach of curtailing their workforce and capital expenditures, while maintaining their investments in R&D and CSR. We further document that firms that followed this two-pronged approach performed better post-crisis.

Relying on gender-role congruity theory, this paper investigates the relationship between the gender of the top management teams of venture philanthropy firms and their business risk-taking orientation. The research also assesses if and how experience moderates this relationship. Using a combination of survey data to capture the venture philanthropy firm’s risk orientation and biographical data to identify managers’ gender and experience, it finds that only gender affects business risk-orientation in these firms. Surprisingly, this is the opposite direction than expected, whereby teams with a higher proportion of women have a higher risk-taking profile. This suggests the need to revise the applicability of gender role congruity theory, the existence of a gender-bind dilemma, and the relevance of context in venture philanthropy.

This study provides descriptive evidence on how firms respond to activist short seller reports and how these responses are associated with outcomes for the targeted firms. We show that the frequency of these reports has grown substantially in recent years. Although we find that firms respond only 31% of the time, this rate increases substantially when the report is accompanied by significantly negative abnormal returns and when the report contains new evidence. Not responding is associated with a less negative stock price response at report release and fewer adverse outcomes. Firms that launch internal investigations following the report release have significantly higher subsequent rates of stock exchange delisting and SEC enforcement actions, and lower rates of being acquired. Overall, our results highlight the impact of activist short sellers on target firms and that firm responses are associated with material outcomes.

We examine the economic determinants and consequences associated with the inclusion of covenants with similar levels of restrictiveness in bond contracts. Using a unique Moody’s bond covenant dataset, we develop measures that capture similarity in the restrictiveness of bond covenants relative to previously issued peer bonds. We document that the demand for similarity by issuers, their advisors and bond investors follows the predictions of sociological and economic theories. Further, consistent with similarity in covenants reducing bond investors’ information acquisition and processing costs, we show that bonds with more similar covenant restrictiveness receive lower yields at issuance. These bonds are also more likely to be held by long-term bond investors, such as insurance companies, and are characterized by greater liquidity in the secondary market, providing a partial explanation for the lower bond yields. Our results highlight the benefits of covenant similarity and suggest that the use of covenants with similar restrictiveness levels brings information acquisition and processing cost savings that may be larger than the monitoring benefits provided by covenants with more tailored features.

Using a novel pairwise measure of firms’ acquisition of rivals’ disclosures, we show that investment opportunities drive interfirm information flows. We find that these flows predict subsequent mergers and acquisitions as well as how and how much firms invest, relative to rivals. Moreover, firms’ use of rivals’ information often hinges on the similarities of their products. Our results suggest that rivals’ public information, far from being unusable, helps facilitate investment and product decisions, including acquisitions and product differentiation strategies. The findings also support a learning mechanism that could partly underlie the emerging literature on peer investment effects.

Typically, the economic analysis of Renewable Energy Projects (REP) has been assessed considering Classical Methodologies of Investment Analysis (CMIA) in which only a few set of indicators are included, highlighting the Payback, Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. This excessive reliance on CMIA has been criticized because it neglects managerial flexibility, and it may end up leading to the project's undervaluation. This paper attempts firstly, to identify and describe the complementarity among economic evaluation methodologies for REP. Secondly, a novel framework is proposed for conducting the economic analysis to help decision-makers in identifying the most suitable methodology before proceeding with the investment. The findings of the study suggest that CMIA may be suitable for the cases of projects presenting low volatility. However, the analysis should be supplemented by a new set of indicators for projects with medium or high volatility. The Multi-Index Methodology (MIM), the Extended Multi-Index Methodology (EMIM) and the Real Options Analysis (ROA) are proposed to increase the investors' perception towards both the project's profitability and risk and to account for flexibility. The application of the proposed framework is demonstrated for the case of a Small Hydropower Plant (SHP) investment project. The outcomes of this paper also include the opportunities for decision-makers to flexibly respond to changes in the business and economic market using the proposed conceptual framework., This work is supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil. This work has been supported by FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020.

This study presents a field experiment we conducted in which media articles for a random sample of firms with earnings announcements are promoted to a one percent subset of Yahoo Finance users. The promoted firms have similar fundamental and earnings-news characteristics as control firms, yet we find that promoted firms have higher abnormal returns on the day of the earnings announcement, and some evidence of lower bid-ask spreads. Moreover, these results are more pronounced for less visible firms, negative earnings news, and on days with fewer promoted firms. We do not find evidence of significant increases in trading volume, or of information acquisition by users subject to the promotion. These findings suggest that investor attention affects the pricing of earnings and that retail investors buy stocks that catch their attention, in a setting where attention is randomly assigned.

To reduce the Sulphur emission from shipping and ensure clean shipping, a number of Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECA) were enforced in special areas around the globe. From 2015, in SECA, ship owners are not allowed to use fuel with more than 0.1% Sulphur content. One of the major concerns for the SECA regulation is that maritime stakeholders have had to take into consideration the costs as well as the tolerable risks of their compliance investment options. Besides that, low freight rates have increased the competition and had caused financial pressure on ship owners so that lower capital reserves and low credibility levels limit the manoeuvring space for investment activities. The indications from BSR after 2015 showed that the low fuel price has eased the economic effects of the SECA regulation and as a result, most ship owners have delayed their investment decisions. Even though the postponement of emission abatement techniques seems to have reduced the compliance expenses for SECA, they, however, did not improve the position of shipowners relative to their competitors. Consequently, new policy instruments to stimulate innovation, to raise competitiveness and to comply with the new environmental regulations are needed. It would have been easier to hedge fuel price volatility and offer maritime logistics services for a lower price, but to be able to ensure sustainable results in long-term, maritime stakeholders must be ready to device astute strategies that can propel them to unparalleled advantage. This research first appraised the investment risks and payback period associated with the scrubber using different capital budgeting methods. It further illustrated the Maritime Energy Contracting (MEC) model as a market mechanism for the delivery of a cost-effective emission reduction using the scrubber technology as well as an instrument to realise a competitive advantage for ship operators. The results are empirically validated by case studies from BSR.

In the article the analysis of international data collection systems for analysis of investment projects. Examples of the international statistical, financial and audit organizations publish articles and data which are necessary in the analysis of investment at the level of a single project, and at the level of the country. Analyzes the volume of investments in EU countries and Russian Federation, as well as comparative analysis. In Russia the analysis of dynamics of investments in fixed capital by kinds of economic activities are considered sources of financing. According to the results of the analysis of the findings and practical recommendations for improving the efficiency of the organization's funds.

Ever stricter emission regulations stimulate vessel owners to consider the adoption of alternative marine fuels, such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). In deciding whether to invest in LNG-fueled vessels, initial investment and operating costs are decisive factors that have not yet been fully studied in the literature. In this paper, we present a new investment appraisal method to compare the costs of LNG-fueled vessels with conventional vessels. We analyze the fuel costs and overall exploitation costs by simulating bunker planning decisions under stochastic fuel prices, presence in emission controlled areas, and route lengths. Our analyses reveal that the fuel costs of LNG-fueled vessels are often lower than those of conventional vessels, even under unfavorable LNG prices. Due to the higher initial investment costs in LNG-fueled vessels, these fuel cost reductions do not always translate into lower overall exploitation costs. By conducting numerical experiments, we identified conditions under which the exploitation costs of LNG-fueled vessels are lower than conventional vessels.

We examine whether there is a correlation between personal wealth interests of politicians and their decisions to intervene in the economy. We use the setting of the government’s support of financial institutions under the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (ESSA). We find that the personal wealth interests of politicians are positively associated with voting in favour of the EESA.

This paper assesses the economic benefits of 57 World Bank Group-sponsored hydropower dam plant investments. Hydropower dams are among the main sources for producing electricity and the largest renewable source for power generation throughout the world. Hydropower dams are often a lower-cost option for power generation in Clean Energy Transition for addressing global climate change. Despite its conspicuous aspects, constructing hydropower dams has been controversial. Considering the World Bank’s long history as the largest hydropower development financier, this study investigates its performance in supporting hydropower dams. The outcomes of this study apply to the wider hydropower development community. Of the projects in this study, 70% experienced a cost overrun, and more than 80% of projects experienced time overruns, incurring potential additional costs as a result. Despite the high cost and time overruns, this hydropower portfolio of dams produced a present value of net economic benefits by 2016 of over half a trillion USD. Based on our findings, the evaluated hydropower portfolio helped avoid over a billion tonnes of CO2 for an estimated global environmental benefit valued at nearly USD 350 billion. The projects’ additional environmental benefits raise the real rate of return from 15.4% to 17.3%. The implication for hydropower developers is that the projects’ assessment should consider cost and time overrun and factor them into the project-planning contingency scenarios. There is a considerable benefit for developing countries to exploit their hydropower resources if they can be developed according to industry practices and international standards. The case for developing hydropower may be stronger when considering its climate benefits. The net economic benefits of hydropower can be even higher if there is a greater effort to manage cost and time overruns.

We use daily page views of analyst estimates, ratings, and target prices on Yahoo Finance to understand when users seek sell-side analyst research. Demand for this information is most pronounced on days with earnings announcements, management guidance, and All-Star analyst reports. Surprisingly, demand does not increase at Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings. While the overall demand for analyst estimates is 19.9 percent less than for analyst ratings and target prices, on earnings announcement and management guidance days, this preference is reversed. Moreover, the demand for analyst information substantially trumps that of SEC filings and financial statement information. JEL Classifications: M41; G14; G24.

We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the link between financial and real health care markets. This link is important as financial returns drive investment in medical research and development (R&D), which, in turn, affects real spending growth. We document a “medical innovation premium” of 4–6% annually for equity returns of firms in the health care sector. We interpret this premium as compensating investors for government-induced profit risk, and we provide supportive evidence for this hypothesis through company filings and abnormal return patterns surrounding threats of government intervention. We quantify the implications of the premium for the growth in real health care spending by calibrating our model to match historical trends, predicting the share of gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to health care to be 32% in the long run. Policies that had removed government risk would have led to more than a doubling of medical R&D and would have increased the current share of health care spending by more than 3% of GDP.

Assessing the value of investments can be considered a multidimensional problem and a continuous process wherein the decision-maker is confronted with multiple needs, requirements and values. Thus, all investments and investment portfolios should be evaluated, selected and prioritised not only in terms of money, but also with regard to dependability, sustainability and other aspects to be able to form the optimal investment portfolio. This paper proposes a life-cycle cost-oriented portfolio analysis model that will better serve investment decision-making in the capital-intensive industry. The conceptual model includes economic assessment, risk assessment, as well as strategic and technical analyses. From a long-term perspective, applying a more integrated approach to investment portfolio assessments generates several benefits, including advancing companies’ and stakeholders’ abilities to manage investments and to support the goal of sustainable business growth.

Using structuration theory, this paper examines capital budgeting and its role in the ‘energy trilemma’. The key focus is on the role of knowledgeable agency inffq s. the analysis of strategic conduct. In particular, demonstrating how accounting tools can be used by executive managers, who whilst dominant in their own organisations, are themselves subordinate to the government in the United Kingdom and at the European level. The strategic conduct of actors is examined in a narrative, theorised case study setting, which spans across 11 years, 2006- 2017. The principal contribution to knowledge from this study is the extent to which strategic investment accounting played in changing regulatory and government policy and spending requirements in a privatised industry. The most dominant party, the government and regulators, were forced to take the generators’ concerns seriously, because the generators (based on knowledge derived from capital budgets) restricted their capital expenditure rather than mobilising their resources. The need for resources to reduce emissions provided an opportunity for the industry to force the government to consider the problem of energy. The generators highlighted that this was not only a problem of price for consumers and environmental sustainability, but as one of long term supply. The generators argued that government had to address all aspects of the trilemma when creating policy.

Purpose—The purpose of this study is to investigate various aspects of capital budgeting techniques adopted by Kuwaiti non-financial companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE). Design/methodology/approach—A questionnaire is used to collect data from Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and other managers of manufacturing, service and real estate companies listed on the KSE. Findings—The result of the analysis unveiled that top management and people who used the assets are the main sources of capital budgeting ideas. The analysis also unveiled that net present value and profitability index are the most frequently used capital budgeting techniques and the choice of the technique is determined by the nature of the project under assessment, and the academic and professional capabilities of corporate staff. The analysis further demonstrated that factors such as uncertainty about the outcome of the capital budgeting techniques and lack of required data and information to use capital budgeting techniques could prevent Kuwaiti non-financial companies from adopting capital budgeting techniques. Finally, the analysis disclosed that non-financial factors such as strategic planning, corporate image, employees’ capabilities and environment protection are taken into consideration when making capital budgeting decisions. Practical implications—Kuwaiti companies either possess technology or have the required resources to install advanced technology to assist them in employing sophisticated capital budgeting techniques that take into account inflation and risk. This would ensure more accurate results and minimize uncertainty about the outcome of the capital budgeting decisions. Originality/value—This study is based on primary data collected directly from non-financial companies listed on the KSE.

Our research is aimed at identifying the current practices in respect of the financial appraisal of information communication technology and non-ICT projects. We look specifically at the UK – a well-established market economy – and the Czech Republic – an emerging market economy. Our research is based on a unique survey, which simultaneously examines the financial appraisal models used in the two types of projects, and addresses these issues from two diverse market economies. An important finding is that any differences in the financial models used relate to the two countries rather than between ICT or non-ICT projects. While both countries make extensive use of the payback model, they fully defend the view that this model influences a short-term mentality. The Czech Republic, more so than the UK, also support the view that the payback is unsuitable for appraising information communication technology projects, yet they still use it to appraise such projects. The Czech Republic places less importance on the discounted cashflow models than the UK, with the Czech Republic preferring the ‘net present value’ to the ‘internal rate of return’. The UK, by using an ‘opportunity cost of capital’ approach in the determination of the ‘discount rate’, may be making it harder to achieve a positive net present value than the Czech Republic, who adopt an approach which is nearer to the true cost of capital. This exploratory study will aid both practitioners and academics in a greater understanding of the appraisal of capital assets and focus future research in a positive way.

International audience; We analyze information production incentives for traders in financial markets, when firms condition investment decisions on information revealed through stock prices. We show that traders’ private value of information about a firm’s investment project increases with the ex ante likelihood the project will be undertaken. This generates an informational amplification effect of shocks to firm value. Information production by traders may exhibit strategic complementarities for projects that would not be undertaken in the absence of positive news from the stock market. A small decline in fundamentals can lead to a market breakdown where information production ceases, and investment and firm value collapse. Our theory sheds light on how productivity shocks are amplified over the business cycle.

This paper examines how uncertainty affects corporate investment under varying degrees of asset redeployability. We develop new measures of asset redeployability by accounting for the usability of assets within and across industries. We identify plausibly exogenous shocks to economic uncertainty by using major economic and political events. We find that after an increase in uncertainty, firms using less redeployable capital reduce investment more. More redeployable assets exhibit higher recovery rates and are traded more actively in secondary markets. Overall, our results suggest that frictions in redeploying assets affect liquidation values and therefore make firms cautious about investment decisions under uncertainty.

Deep decarbonisation of the electricity sector is central to achieving the United Kingdom’s (UK) climate policy targets for 2050 and meeting its international commitments under the Paris Agreement. While the overall strategy for decarbonising the energy system has been well established in previous studies, there remain deep uncertainties around the total investment cost requirements for the power system. The future of the power system is of critical importance because low carbon electricity may create significant opportunities for emissions reduction in buildings and transport. A key policy application of quantitative analysis using models is to explore how much investment needs to be mobilised for the energy transition. However, past estimates of energy transition costs for the UK power sector have focused only on 2030 rather than 2050 and consider a relatively narrow range of uncertainties. This paper addresses this important research gap. The UK government's main whole system energy economy model is linked to a power system model that employs an advanced approach to uncertainty analysis, combining Monte Carlo simulation with Modelling-to-Generate Alternatives (MGA), producing 800 different scenario pathways. These pathways simultaneously consider uncertainties in policy, technology and costs. The results show that with No Climate Policy, installed generation capacities in 2050 are found in the range 60–75 GW, while under an 80% Reduction in GHG Emissions, between 100 GW and 130 GW of plant are required. Meeting climate targets for 2050 is also found to increase the investment requirements for new electricity generation. The interquartile range for cumulative investments in new generation under the No Climate Policy scenario ranges from £60bn to £75bn, while under an 80% Reduction in GHG Emissions, investment requirements approximately double to £110bn - £140bn. The exercise demonstrates the importance of uncertainty analysis to policy evaluation, yielding insights for future research practice both in the UK and internationally.

Serbian government has recently introduced the system of feed-in tariffs for electricity generated from renewable sources. The proposed feed-in tariff for photovoltaic electricity is set to 0.23 €/kWh paid for 12 years, with the PV electricity produced after the first 12 years being sold at the grid electricity market price for the rest of the plant lifetime. Although such FIT could have been justified by the small, average retail grid electricity price of just 0.054 €/kWh for Serbian households, the investment appraisal of a real case of 2.82 kWp PV power plant in two Serbian cities of Zlatibor and Negotin, clearly illustrates that the proposed FIT framework is not sufficient to attract investments into PV in Serbia. In the second part of the paper, we have analyzed alternative, more reasonable feed-in tarrif frameworks, with the goal of selecting those able to sustain the PV adoption and diffusion in Serbia.

Africa is a potential domain for international business. However, numerous uncertainties characterize this environment and the challenge for multinationals remains the ability to assess the true value of an Africa-bound investment project. A telecommunications’ survey was conducted on Siemens Southern Africa (Siemens) and Mobile Telecommunications’ Network (MTN) and the following observations were made: (1) Approaches used by the businesses to value Africa-bound investments were not comprehensive and inclusive. (2) Neutrality existed to the suggestion that Africa is unique and that investment decisions should be customized to suit it. (3) Certain approaches used by the businesses were modified to suit pertaining investment circumstances thereby differing from literature, and (4), participants desired to learn new ways of improving this process suggesting dissatisfaction with the current norm. This paper presents the conflicting ideologies about the decision-making process for business expansion into Africa and suggests ways of improving the process.

Risk management is an important component of project management. Nevertheless, such process begins with risk assessment and evaluation. In this research project, a detailed analysis of the methodologies used to treat risks in investment projects adopted by the Banco da Amazonia S.A. was made. Investment projects submitted to the FNO (Constitutional Fund for Financing the North) during 2011 and 2012 were considered for that purpose. It was found that the evaluators of this credit institution use multiple indicators for risk assessment which assume a central role in terms of decision-making and contribute for the approval or the rejection of the submitted projects; namely, the proven ability to pay, the financial records of project promotors, several financial restrictions, level of equity, level of financial indebtedness, evidence of the existence of a consumer market, the proven experience of the partners/owners in the business, environmental aspects, etc. Furthermore, the bank has technological systems to support the risk assessment process, an internal communication system and a unique system for the management of operational risk.

This study addresses the issue of investment appraisal of new technology, specifically computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools in conjunction with optimal allocation of parts and operations on CNC machines as the investments take place. Part-operation allocation is the allocation of parts and operations to either the conventional machines or to the new technology as they are acquired. It is shown that part allocation is an important consideration in the assessment of profitability from investments in CNC technology. A mixed integer programming model is presented to (1) determine the optimal allocation of parts and operations to conventional machines and to new CNC machine tools; and (2) determine the optimal investment sequence and timing of investments in CNC machine tools. The optimality criterion is based on a maximization of net present value (NPV) over a specified planning horizon. The application of the model is illustrated using a numerical example, and the implications for industrial practice are also indicated. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This study empirically conducts the sensitivity analysis for the determinants of investment appraisal of Pakistani non-financial firms listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) across sectors. We employed OLS regression along with common effect and fixed effect model on panel data pertaining to 60 non-listed firms at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) over the period from 2003 to 2015. Empirical results document that leverage, growth, dynamism and inflation have strong positive associations with investment appraisal, however, munificence and GDP influence the process conversely. The study provides useful framework for potential investors to evaluate all these vital factors besides conventional mechanism, prior to making investment decision. Policy makers for non-financial sectors may get benefit by apply this diagnostic model to evaluate prospective investment projects for the most optimistic outcome. Corporate finance literature reveals that there is no formal evidence of determinants of capital expenditure at different levels of economic recessions; therefore, the study is pioneer effort to identify the significant determinants of investment appraisal of Pakistani listed non-financial firms across sectors, eventually, a useful contribution in existing literature.

Background and purpose: Due to the fact that poplar rotation is one of the shortest in forestry, and as production of poplar wood requires rational and well-planned management, the potentials of sites and species must be maximally utilised. The main characteristics of the procedure of investment in poplar cultivation, is the fact that the conditions for the beginning of production and their exploitation are not created simultaneously. The main goal of the work reported in this paper was to examine the financial effects of different discount rates on the cost-efficiency values of studied poplar plantation, based on an analysis of the present value of costs and revenues over a stated time period using different methods of investment appraisal. Material and methods: Investment Appraisal also known as Capital Budgeting is used to asses whether capital expenditure on particular poplar plantations will be beneficial for the entity or not. The investigated plantation was established from Populus x euramericana cl.I-214 on alluvial semigley, with planting spacing 6 x 3 m, aged 26 years, for technical wood production. The data used in this study were collected from the archives of the, according to the age at plantation established and from the management and materials books of the forest enterprise “Vojvodinasume”. During twoyear study, the material was collected from study plot in order to assess the density, distribution and significance of individual fungal organisms present in the plantation. Identification was based on the morphological characteristics of species. Original scientific paper Results and conclusions: Under the calculation discount rate of 12%, the project for the production cycle of 26 years was not cost-effective from the economic aspect. The discount rate of 6% can be accepted in this studied plot because of the better sites (alluvial semigley) and youngness of the stand. For the studied sample plot IRR is 6.94. R for the r=12% in the study compartment is 0.407. The analysis shows that PBP is practically unacceptable for the investor under the discount rate of 6%. In the studied plot altogether 11 species of fungi causing significant damages in hybrid poplar plantations were identified. Two were found on cortical tissue, 6 on leaves and 3 species are causing decay. Number of trees attacked with decaying fungi, like Fomes fomentarius, Trametes suaveolens, was bellow 2%/ two percentage.

This paper is concerned with forecasting traffic accidents at a relatively aggregate level and over a long time period; the sort of information that is required as part of a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of a major transportation investment or policy change. It is not so focused on appraising the social value of specific safety measures, although some of the points made seem germane. Whereas there has been much ex ante analysis at the meso- and macro-levels looking at the causes of accidents and ways of reducing both their number and severity, much less ex post has been done considering the accuracy of predictions of accident rates after an investment or policy initiative. Given the evidence that exists on the accuracy of traffic forecasts, especially involving oft over-optimistic predictions of public transit and rail use, there is at least a prima facie case for arguing that many investment and policy decisions are being based, in part, on over favorable assumptions with regard to their aggregate safety impacts.