Multistage Capital Budgeting for Shared Investments
研究了两阶段多部门共享投资中委托决策方案的表现，发现最优机制下第一阶段资本收费率高于公司资本成本、第二阶段低于资本成本，且资产成本分摊规则仅取决于部门相对增长特征。
This paper studies the performance of delegated decision-making schemes in a two-stage, multidivision capital budgeting problem for a shared investment with an inherent abandonment option. Applying both robust goal congruence and sequential adverse selection frameworks, we show that the optimal capital budgeting mechanism entails a capital charge rate above the firm's cost of capital in the first stage but below the cost of capital in the second stage. Further, the first-stage asset cost-sharing rule depends only on the relative divisional growth profiles, and equal cost sharing can be optimal even when the divisions receive significantly different benefits from the shared investment project. In the presence of an adverse selection problem, all agency costs are incorporated into the second-stage budgeting mechanism, leaving the first-stage capital charge rate and asset-sharing rule unaffected even though the agency problem induces capital rationing at both stages. This paper was accepted by Mary Barth, accounting.