IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1132.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Risk on the Firm's Optimal Capital Stock: A Note

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin J. Maloney
  • William J. Marshall
  • Jess B. Yawitz

Abstract

In this paper we extend the recent work on the choice of input mix under uncertainty. In particular, we demonstrate that the qualitative nature of the disturbance term, along with the decision sequence, is a crucial determinant of the overall effect of uncertainty on the optimal input mix of a firm. Using general demand and production functions in conjunction with a mean-variance framework for financial valuation, we demonstrate the differential effects of systematic and non-systematic risk on the firm's choice of an optimal input mix. Consistent with earlier work in economics, this analysis demonstrates that uncertainty, regardless of the source, has important implications for the firm's choice of technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin J. Maloney & William J. Marshall & Jess B. Yawitz, 1983. "The Effect of Risk on the Firm's Optimal Capital Stock: A Note," NBER Working Papers 1132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1132
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1132.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loistl, Otto, 1976. "The Erroneous Approximation of Expected Utility by Means of a Taylor's Series Expansion: Analytic and Computational Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 904-910, December.
    2. Greenberg, Edward & Marshall, William J & Yawitz, Jess B, 1978. "The Technology of Risk and Return," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(3), pages 241-251, June.
    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. Markowitz, Harry, 2014. "Mean–variance approximations to expected utility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 346-355.
    2. Arun G. Chandrasekhar & Robert Townsend & Juan Pablo Xandri, 2018. "Financial Centrality and Liquidity Provision," NBER Working Papers 24406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Briec, Walter & Kerstens, Kristiaan, 2010. "Portfolio selection in multidimensional general and partial moment space," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-656, April.
    4. Philippe Bernard & Najat El Mekkaoui De Freitas & Bertrand B. Maillet, 2022. "A financial fraud detection indicator for investors: an IDeA," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 809-832, June.
    5. William J. Marshall & Jess B. Yawitz & Edward Greenberg, 1984. "Incentives for Diversification and the Structure of the Conglomerate Firm," NBER Working Papers 1280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Monica Billio & Bertrand Maillet & Loriana Pelizzon, 2022. "A meta-measure of performance related to both investors and investments characteristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 1405-1447, June.
    7. Schmalensee, Richard., 1978. "A simple model of risk and return on long-lived tangible assets," Working papers 1036-78., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    8. Emmanuel Jurczenko & Bertrand Maillet & Paul Merlin, 2008. "Efficient Frontier for Robust Higher-order Moment Portfolio Selection," Post-Print halshs-00336475, HAL.
    9. Wang, Chou-Wen & Liu, Kai & Li, Bin & Tan, Ken Seng, 2022. "Portfolio optimization under multivariate affine generalized hyperbolic distributions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 49-66.
    10. Luis H. B. Braido & V. Filipe Martins†da†Rocha, 2018. "Output Contingent Securities And Efficient Investment By Firms," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 989-1012, May.
    11. Massimo Guidolin & Allan Timmerman, 2005. "Optimal portfolio choice under regime switching, skew and kurtosis preferences," Working Papers 2005-006, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    12. Eric Jondeau & Michael Rockinger, 2006. "Optimal Portfolio Allocation under Higher Moments," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(1), pages 29-55, January.
    13. Stehle, Richard, 1981. "The choice of invoicing currency under exchange rate and price level uncertainty," Discussion Papers, Series C 2, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    14. Homm, Ulrich & Pigorsch, Christian, 2012. "Beyond the Sharpe ratio: An application of the Aumann–Serrano index to performance measurement," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2274-2284.
    15. Fahrenwaldt, Matthias A. & Sun, Chaofan, 2020. "Expected utility approximation and portfolio optimisation," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 301-314.
    16. Michenaud, Sébastien & Solnik, Bruno, 2008. "Applying regret theory to investment choices: Currency hedging decisions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 677-694, September.
    17. Nitzan Weiss, 1984. "Capital Markets, Output, and the Demand for Inputs under Uncertainty," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 51-69, Jan-Mar.
    18. Greenwood, Peter H., 1981. "Common Property, Resource Rent And Uncertainty: With An Application To The New England Groundfish Fleet," 1981 Annual Meeting, July 26-29, Clemson, South Carolina 279439, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Turan G. Bali, 2007. "A Generalized Extreme Value Approach to Financial Risk Measurement," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1613-1649, October.
    20. Elyès Jouini, 2023. "Belief Dispersion and Convex Cost of Adjustment in the Stock Market and in the Real Economy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4190-4209, July.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1132. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.