What Fraction of a Capital Investment is Sunk Costs?
通过分析废弃金属加工机械的残值，研究发现企业安装新机器后平均只能收回初始价格的20%至50%，且不同企业的价值-年龄曲线存在差异，但衰退期残值是否特别低仅有微弱证据支持。
To what extent are capital investments sunk costs? This question is addressed by examining the salvage values of discarded metalworking machinery. Even though such assets are expected to be non‐specific, many discarded assets are scrapped rather than sold on second‐hand markets. Econometric results suggest that firms can only expect to get back 20–50 percent of the initial price of a ‘new’ machine once it is installed. The results also indicate differences in value‐age profiles across firms, but provide only weak support for the hypothesis that salvage values are particularly low during recessions.