Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Jul, 1983, Volume 51, Issue 4

Investment Selection with Imperfect Capital Markets

https://doi.org/0012-9682(198307)51:4<1121:ISWICM>2.0.CO;2-8
p. 1121-1144

David G. Cantor, Steven A. Lippman

How should corporate capital be allocated and which, if any, rules of behavior ought to guide business investment decisions? Much of the debate in the 1950's literature (see Solomon [18]) which set out to answer these questions focused upon choosing between the top two contending criteria for correct investment selection: present value and internal-rate-of-return. By invoking the assumption of perfect capital markets (see Hirshleifer [10]), the debate was essentially resolved in favor of present value. However, by dropping the perfect capital markets assumption and imposing a borrowing constraint, we characterize the relationship between an investment project's asymptotic (internal) growth rate and its set of internal-rates-of-return; this characterization resolves the debate in favor of the latter criterion.


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