Cash Flow Modelling and Forecasting in Capital Budgeting Under Uncertainty*

The subject of this paper is modelling and forecasting of cash flows generated by a capital investment. The paper proposes the application of autoregressive, moving average, and mixed autoregressive moving-average processes to capital budgeting. In addition, models for deterministic, stochastic and seasonal trends are considered. For each class of cash flows, analytical expressions are developed for the mean and variance of a project's net present value (NPV). Also considered are several equilibrium pricing models. For two of them, the forecasting methodology developed here is integrated into the pricing equation. Although the overall emphasis of the paper is on modelling and forecasting of cash flows, the implications for NPV pricing and risk analysis are also investigated. Several examples are used to illustrate the impact of particular cash flow models on the price and risk of a project.     

The freight allocation problem with all-units quantity-based discount: A heuristic algorithm

This paper studies a problem encountered by a buying office for one of the largest retail distributors in the world. An important task for the buying office is to plan the distribution of goods from Asia to various destinations across Europe. The goods are transported along shipping lanes by shipping companies, which offer different discount rates depending on the freight quantity. To increase the reliability of transportation, the shipper imposes a quantity limit on each shipping company on each shipping lane. To guarantee a minimum business volume, each shipping company requests a minimum total freight quantity over all lanes if it is contracted. The task involves allocating projected demand of each shipping lane to shipping companies subject to the above conditions such that the total cost is minimized.Existing work on this and related problems employs commercial linear programming software to solve their models. However, since the problem is NP−hard in the strong sense, it is unlikely to be solvable optimally in reasonable time for large cases. Hence, we propose the first heuristic-based algorithm for the problem, which combines a filter-and-fan search scheme with a tabu search mechanism. Experiments on randomly generated test instances show that as the size of the problem increases, our algorithm produces superior solutions in less time compared to a leading mixed-integer programming solver.     

我国上市公司CFO薪酬与盈余质量的相关性研究

本文研究了我国上市公司CFO薪酬与盈余质量的相关性.研究发现,随着我国上市公司治理机制的不断完善,上市公司逐步建立起了以盈余为业绩指标的CFO薪酬激励机制.通过文章逐层递进的研究,我们发现我国上市公司CFO薪酬激励契约显著地区别反映了盈余中的非经常性损益和经常性损益,但是却未能有效地区别反映经常性损益中的应计项目和经营性现金流,存在类似"功能锁定"的现象.进一步细分研究样本后,我们发现由于盈余管理上市公司CFO薪酬激励契约对非经常性损益和经常性损益的不合理权重赋值,扭亏上市公司的CFO薪酬激励契约反而刺激了CFO进行盈余管理.根据研究我们认为,解决CFO薪酬激励契约对应计项目和经营性现金流的"功能锁定"现象,改进盈余管理上市公司CFO薪酬激励契约成为目前我国上市公司完善CFO薪酬激励机制的两个重要任务.     

But Will it Raise My Share Price? New Thoughts About an Old Question

In valuing any investment project or acquisition, executives must decide what discount rate to use to estimate the value of the projected cash flows. This paper argues that the traditional approach, which bases its estimate of the company’s cost of capital on the Capital Asset Pricing Model, places the company at risk. Specifically, ‘beta’ is unreliable and captures only a portion of the risk that managers and shareholders agree are important. The authors then offer an alternative measure—reflecting a company’s total risk—that they say provides a reliable estimate and is consistent with the evolving theory of strategic management.     

航运供应链上的品牌价值、公平关切与契约协调

航运供应链上的船公司提高企业品牌价值需要付出大量的投资成本,因此将会更加关注供应链上利润分配的公平。本文以单个船公司和单个货代公司构成的两级航运供应链为研究对象,运用博弈论分析船公司的公平关切行为和品牌投入意愿对航运供应链上各方利润的影响,探讨决策者非理性条件下航运供应链的合作模式和协调机制。研究表明：1）船公司的公平关切提高了其在供应链上利润分配占比,但降低了整个航运供应链的利润和效率;2）随着品牌投入意愿的提高,船公司的公平关切对航运供应链上各方决策的负作用就越明显;3）"收益共享成本共担"式契约能够消除公平关切的负作用,达到航运供应链纵向联盟的最优收益和整体效率。     

AUTOCORRELATED CASH FLOWS AND THE SELECTION OF A PORTFOLIO OF CAPITAL ASSETS *

Capital budgeting models for analyzing real assets typically are based on a set of restrictive assumptions that influence financial managers' decisions and may prevent optimization of the firm's objectives. This research examines the common restrictive assumption that cash flows are intertemporally independent by first developing an economic state and simulation model based on a Markov process for including autocorrelated cash flows in the capital budgeting decision process and then demonstrating why managers should include autocorrelated cash flows in capital budgeting models by empirically testing the impact of assuming intertemporally independent cash flows on capital budgeting decisions. The results indicate that ignoring autocorrelated cash flows seriously limits the ability of capital budgeting models to provide optimal investment decisions. The model also is very attractive for practical application because it can be implemented with a minimum number of estimates and provides the set of input data required by a number of capital budgeting models. A discussion of the implementation of the model is included.     

Linking Product Planning and Process Design Decisions

Manufacturing strategy reflects the goals of the business strategy and directs the manufacturing function in achieving them. In this study, we focus on two decision areas with crucial implications for manufacturing strategy: product planning and process design. Using mathematical programming models as a research tool, we test several conjectures in the manufacturing strategy literature regarding linkages between the two decisions. Our results show that a close integration between these decisions helps control the product offerings, stabilize process requirements, improve process technology choices, and increase net cash flows over time. Using the concept of environmental clusters, we found that a close linkage is more critical when the environment is more complex, less uncertain, and tighter. Based on these findings, we present some managerial implications and suggestions for future research.     

All the bottles in one basket? Evaluating the effect of intra-industry diversification on risk

This paper develops a framework using Monte Carlo simulation to examine risk/return properties of intra-industry product portfolio composition and diversification. We use product-level data covering all Swedish sales of alcoholic beverages to describe the risk profiles of wholesalers and how they are affected by actual and hypothetical changes to product portfolios. Using a large number of counterfactual portfolios we quantify the diversification benefits of different product portfolio compositions. In this market the most important reductions in variability come from focusing on domestic products and from focusing on product categories that have low variability. The number of products also has a large effect in the simulations, moving from a portfolio of 10 products to one of 20 products cuts standard deviation of cash flows in relation to mean cash flows by more than half. The concentration of import origins plays a minor quantitative role on risk/return profiles in this market.     

Maximizing the rate of return on the capital employed in shipping capacity renewal

Decisions regarding investments in capacity expansion/renewal require taking into account both the operating fitness and the financial performance of the investment. While several operating requirements have been considered in the operations research literature, the corresponding financial aspects have not received as much attention. We introduce a model for the renewal of shipping capacity which maximizes the Average Internal Rate of Return (AIRR). Maximizing the AIRR sets stricter return requirements on money expenditures than classic profit maximization models and may describe more closely shipping investors׳ preferences. The resulting nonlinear model is linearized to ease computation. Based on data from a shipping company we compare a profit maximization model with an AIRR maximization model. Results show that while maximizing profits results in aggressive expansions of the fleet, maximizing the return provides more balanced renewal strategies which may be preferable to most shipping investors.     

Modeling Finite‐Time Failure Probabilities in Risk Analysis Applications

In this article, we introduce a framework for analyzing the risk of systems failure based on estimating the failure probability. The latter is defined as the probability that a certain risk process, characterizing the operations of a system, reaches a possibly time‐dependent critical risk level within a finite‐time interval. Under general assumptions, we define two dually connected models for the risk process and derive explicit expressions for the failure probability and also the joint probability of the time of the occurrence of failure and the excess of the risk process over the risk level. We illustrate how these probabilistic models and results can be successfully applied in several important areas of risk analysis, among which are systems reliability, inventory management, flood control via dam management, infectious disease spread, and financial insolvency. Numerical illustrations are also presented.     

基于资金流服务商的供应链资金运作能力研究

高效的资金运作能力是决定一个企业乃至一条供应链成功的关键因素。本文提出了资金流服务商这一概念并重点分析了它所具备的两种资金运作能力:资金回收期压缩能力和采购资金占用压缩能力。在一个单周期的报童模型中,研究了资金流服务商通过给制造商提供这两种资金流服务能够给供应链整体收益带来的增大以及在这个过程中二者的利益分配问题。通过进一步比较这两种资金运作能力,验证了各自对于供应链的重要程度。     

The Stock Market Reaction to Investment Decisions: Evidence from Italy

Based on a study of new investment announcements from 1989 to 1995 by Italian firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, we find a positive stock price reaction to new investment decisions. The stock price reaction is larger for joint venture announcements. The market response is also larger for non-state owned companies and when the announcement is released in a period of rising stock prices. The announced investment has no impact on the non-voting shares but increases the voting shares' market price through a significant revaluation of their vote-segment. We find some evidence that new investments lead to management's private benefits rather than towards firm value. This is consistent with the typical Italian corporate governance structure, where a majority shareholder safely controls a listed company while having only a fractional claim on the firm's cash flows.     

The impact of tax uncertainty on irreversible investment

Traditional models of capital budgeting with taxes are based on deterministic tax rates and tax bases. In reality, however, there are multiple sources of tax uncertainty. Frequent tax reforms make future taxation of investments a stochastic process. Fiscal authorities and tax courts create additional tax uncertainty by interpreting current tax laws differently. Moreover, simplified models that anticipate the actual tax base incorrectly contribute to tax uncertainty as perceived by investors. I analyze the effects of stochastic taxation on investment behavior in a real options model. The investor holds an option to invest in an irreversible project with stochastic cash flows and stochastic tax payments. Pre-tax cash flows and tax payments are assumed to be correlated. Increased tax uncertainty has an ambiguous impact on investment timing. For low tax uncertainty, high cash flow uncertainty and high correlation of cash flows and tax payments, increased tax uncertainty is likely to accelerate investment. A higher expected tax payment delays investment. A higher after-tax discount rate affects investment timing ambiguously.     

When labor representatives join supervisory boards: empirical evidence of the relationship between the change to parity codetermination and working capital and operating cash flows

We examine how the change to 50% labor representation on German supervisory boards is related to working capital and operating cash flows, since both are proxies for short-term financial policies. We expect the change to be associated with reduced working capital and increased operating cash flows. Using a difference-in-differences model, we compare a sample of listed and non-listed firms that changed to parity codetermination between 1987 and 2014 with two different groups of control firms that did not change their level of codetermination. In line with our hypotheses, the results suggest that a change to parity codetermination is related to lower working capital and higher operating cash flows compared to our control firms. We conclude that firms begin to engage in more efficient working capital management due to the change to parity codetermination on supervisory boards. We also conclude that the positive short-term effects on the firms’ operating performance imply that labor representatives do not bear just the interests of employees in mind, but also those of other stakeholders.     

Tighter MIP models for Barge Container Ship Routing

This paper addresses the problem of optimal planning of a liner service for a barge container shipping company. Given estimated weekly demands between pairs of ports, our goal is to determine the subset of ports to be called and the amount of containers to be shipped between each pair of ports, so as to maximize the profit of the shipping company. In order to save possible leasing or storage costs of empty containers at the respective ports, our approach takes into account the repositioning of empty containers. The line has to follow the outbound–inbound principle, starting from the port at the river mouth. We propose a novel integrated approach in which the shipping company can simultaneously optimize the route (along with repositioning of empty containers), the choice of the final port, length of the turnaround time and the size of its fleet. To solve this problem, a new mixed integer programming model is proposed. On the publicly available set of benchmark instances for barge container routing, we demonstrate that this model provides very tight dual bounds and significantly outperforms the existing approaches from the literature for splittable demands.We also show how to further improve this model by projecting out arc variables for modeling the shipping of empty containers. Our numerical study indicates that the latter model improves the computing times for the challenging case of unsplittable demands. We also study the impact of the turnaround time optimization on the total profit of the company.     

The Information Content of Common Stock Repurchases: An Empirical Study1

Share repurchase announcements are known to be associated with significant positive abnormal stock returns. Past studies have argued that the main explanation of this value creation is that share repurchases signal new (and favourable) information about the repurchasing firms' future cash flows. This paper examines this hypothesis and provides evidence on the nature of the information revealed by share repurchases. Using a sample of 41 repurchase announcements from the USA, we show that the new information signalled to the stock market through share repurchasing is not only about changes in the level of future cash flows but also about changes in the riskiness of these cash flows.     

股利政策、盈余持续性与信号显示

本文基于盈余持续性的概念,实证检验了上市公司的股利类型、股利支付率与企业未来盈利能力的关系,并进一步考察了大股东派发现金股利对盈余持续性的影响.本文的研究发现,总体而言,我国上市公司中派发了现金股利的公司其盈余持续性要强于未派发股利的公司,而且在净利润和营业利润上也表现出更强的增长能力.但在派发现金股利的公司中.股利支付率的大小与盈余持续性强弱并不成简单的线性关系,股利支付率高的公司在盈余的整体及其组成部分上并未表现出更强的盈余持续性.最后,大股东对于现金股利的偏好并未显著影响到盈余的持续性.由此,本文认为,我国上市公司的现金股利政策能够成为以持续性衡量的盈余质量或未来盈利能力的附加信号.     

Vendor managed inventory in tramp shipping

This paper introduces a new problem to the OR community that combines traditional tramp shipping with a vendor managed inventory (VMI) service. Such a service may replace the more traditional contract of affreightment (COA) which for decades has been the standard agreement between a tramp shipping company and a charterer. We present a mathematical formulation describing the routing and scheduling problem faced by a tramp shipping company that offers a VMI service to its customers. The problem is formulated as an arc-flow model, and is then reformulated as a path-flow model which is solved using a hybrid approach that combines branch-and-price with a priori path-generation. To solve larger, and more realistic, instances we present a heuristic path-generation algorithm. Computational experiments show that the heuristic approach is much faster than the exact method, with insignificant reductions in solution quality. Further, we investigate the economic impact of introducing a VMI service, by comparing the results obtained with the new model with results obtained by solving the traditional routing and scheduling problem faced by tramp shipping companies using COA. The computational results show that it is possible to substantially increase supply chain profit and efficiency by replacing the traditional COAs with VMI services.     

Applied Capital Budgeting with Cash Flow Dependencies*

This article provides decision makers with a method of determining the variability and acceptability of a major capital investment. The model used here differs from previous models in that it does not use simulation, nor does it require a normal distribution for the cash flow component. Further, it has no restrictions on whether cash flows are dependent. An example of the technique is included.     

公允价值的运用与应计利润功能——基于中国新旧会计准则比较的研究

与现有文献多从价值相关性角度研究公允价值的实施后果不同,本文通过考察我国新准则下应计利润功能的变化来评价公允价值对会计盈余的影响.以2006年非金融类上市公司为样本,我们发现新准则下各期经营性现金流对应计利润的解释能力显著下降,应计利润与上期现金流之间的正相关关系,以及与本期现金流之间的负相关关系都所有减弱,但与下期现金流之间的正相关关系以及对之的预测能力显著增强,对经济收益的确认更加及时和充分.鉴于新准则对会计盈余、特别是应计利润的系统性影响主要来自于公允价值的运用,这些证据表明实施公允价值能够增强应计利润确认经济收益功能,但会削弱其降低现金流噪音功能.