Accounting and Economic Measures: An Integrated Theory of Capital Budgeting

48 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2009 Last revised: 5 Sep 2015

See all articles by Carlo Alberto Magni

Carlo Alberto Magni

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) - School of Doctorate E4E (Engineering for Economics-Economics for Engineering)

Date Written: November 1, 2009

Abstract

Accounting measures are traditionally considered not significant from an economic point of view. In particular, accounting rates of return are often regarded economically meaningless or, at the very best, poor surrogates for the IRR, which is held to be “the” economic yield. Likewise, residual income does not enjoy, in general, periodic consistency with the project NPV, so residual income maximization is not equivalent to NPV maximization. This paper shows that the opposition accounting/economic is artificial and, taking a capital budgeting perspective, illustrates the strong (formal and conceptual) connections existing between economic measures and accounting measures. In particular, the average accounting rate of return is the correct economic yield of a project; the traditional IRR is (whenever it exists) only a particular case of it. The average accounting rate generates a decision rule which is logically equivalent to the NPV rule for both accept/reject decisions and project ranking. The paper also shows that maximization of the simple arithmetic mean of residual incomes is equivalent to NPV maximization, owing to its periodic consistency in the sense of Egginton (1995). Such an index may then be used for incentive compensation as well. Moreover, asset pricing may be interpreted in accounting terms as the process whereby the market determines the income impact on the assets’ value. As a result, the paper harmonizes the notions of accounting rate of return, internal rate of return, residual income, net present value: they are just different ways of cognizing the same notion. This conciliation stems in a rather natural way from three sources: (i) a fundamental accounting identity, which links income and cash flow in a comprehensive way, (ii) the definition of Chisini mean, (iii) a notion of residual income which takes account of the “real” (comprehensive) cost of capital.

Keywords: capital budgeting, accounting rate of return, economic yield, internal rate of return, residual income, net present value, average, Chisini mean, cost of capital

JEL Classification: M41, G11, G12, G31, D81, M52

Suggested Citation

Magni, Carlo Alberto, Accounting and Economic Measures: An Integrated Theory of Capital Budgeting (November 1, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1498106 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1498106

Carlo Alberto Magni (Contact Author)

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) - School of Doctorate E4E (Engineering for Economics-Economics for Engineering) ( email )

Italy

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