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Irreversible capital accumulation under interest rate uncertainty

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  • Luis Alvarez

Abstract

We consider the optimal sequential irreversible investment policy of a value maximizing firm facing decreasing returns to scale and interest rate uncertainty. We characterize the optimal accumulation policy and its value for a broad class of diffusion models of the short interest rate by focusing on the marginal investment decision and deriving the marginal value of capital explicitly. We also state a set of conditions under which there is a maximal capital stock above which the option to expand productive capacity further in the future becomes valueless. Hence, our results indicate that interest rate uncertainty may limit the size of an optimally investing firm. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2010

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:mathme:v:72:y:2010:i:2:p:249-271
    DOI: 10.1007/s00186-010-0319-0
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    Cited by:

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    2. Salvatore Federico & Mauro Rosestolato & Elisa Tacconi, 2018. "Irreversible investment with fixed adjustment costs: a stochastic impulse control approach," Papers 1801.04491, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2019.
    3. Liqi Yi & Tao Li & Xiangyi Wang & Gentana Ge & Ting Zhang, 2022. "Corporate social responsibility performance evaluation from the perspective of stakeholder heterogeneity based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process integrated TOPSIS," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 918-935, July.
    4. Umar Farooq & Jaleel Ahmed & Shamshair Khan, 2021. "Do the macroeconomic factors influence the firm's investment decisions? A generalized method of moments (GMM) approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 790-801, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Interest rate uncertainty; Irreversible investment; Incremental capital accumulation; G31; G11; E22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

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