Analysis of different impact rates on the forecasts cost of building project using sensitivity analysis techniques

Over the years, Life Cycle Costing (LCC) has been recognized and used as an important technique for evaluating, forecasting and discounting the future costs of building to the present day value, from conception, design to completion, operation, maintenance, down to decommissioning. This work presents a study of Analysis on different discount rate of the forecasts cost of building project using sensitivity analysis techniques, the case study being Calabar International Conference Center (CICC) building project. Life cycle cost analysis was conducted and forecast for 51 years using Net present value (NPV) with the following discount rates 4%, 5%, 6%, 8%, 10%, 12% and 13% respectively. Results showed that the lower the discount rates, the higher the cost value and via vasa. The building had a positive value >0 indicating a significant benefit at the end of the study period. The percentage contribution of the discount rate on the initial cost, salvage value and the life cycle cost indicates that at 4% the initial cost accounted for 85% of the discounted cost, life cycle cost 13% and salvage value 2%. The salvage value recorded 0% at 12% and 13% discount rate The higher the discount rates the higher the discounted initial cost and the lower the life cycle cost.

Corporate bond spreads and understated pension liabilities

PurposeThe question is whether debt market investors see through managers' attempts to hide their pension obligations. The authors establish a robust relation between understated pension liabilities and corporate bond yield spreads after controlling for factors that have been previously identified as having a significant impact on firms' cost of borrowing. The results support the idea that bond market investors are not being misled by the use of high pension liability discount rates by some companies to lower their reported pension obligations. For a small fraction of debt issuers, the reported pension liabilities are larger than the pension liabilities valued at the stipulated interest rate benchmarks. For these issuers with overstated pension liabilities, bond investors adjust their borrowing costs downward.Design/methodology/approachThe authors investigate the relation between corporate bond yield spreads and understated pension liabilities relative to long-term Treasury and high-grade corporate bond yields. They aim to answer two questions. First, what are the sizes of over or understated pension liabilities relative to guideline benchmarks? Second, do debt market investors see through the potential management manipulation of pension discount rates? The authors find that firms with large understated pension liabilities face higher marginal borrowing costs after taking into account issue-specific features, firm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions and other pension information such as funded status and mandatory contributions.FindingsThe average understated projected benefit obligations (PBOs) are understated by $394.3 and $335.6, equivalent to 3.5 and 3.0% of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. The average understated accumulated benefit obligations (ABOs) are understated by $359.3 and $305.3 million, equivalent to 3.1 and 2.6%, of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. Relative to AA-grade corporate bond yields, the average difference between firm pension discount rates and benchmark yields becomes much smaller; the percentage of firm pension discount rates higher than benchmark yields is also much smaller. As a result, understated pension liabilities become negligible. The authors establish a robust relation between corporate bond yield spreads and measures of understated pension liabilities after controlling for issue-specific features, firm characteristics, other pension information (funded status and mandatory contributions), macroeconomic conditions, calendar effects and industry effects.Originality/valueS&P Rating Services recognizes the issue that there is considerably more variability in discount rate assumptions among companies than in workforce demographics or the interest rate environment in which firms operate (Standard and Poor's, 2006). S&P also indicates that it would be desirable to normalize different discount rate assumptions but acknowledges that it is difficult to do so. In practice, S&P Rating Services conducts periodic surveys to see whether firms' assumed discount rates conform to the normal standard. The paper makes an initial attempt to quantify the size of understated pension liabilities and their impact on corporate bond yield spreads. This approach can be extended to study firms' costs of equity capital, the pricing of seasoned equity offerings and the pricing of merger and acquisition transaction deals, among other questions.

Biofuel Discount Rates and Stochastic Techno-Economic Analysis for a Prospective Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) Sustainable Aviation Fuel Supply Chain

The international aviation industry has the goal to gradually reduce carbon emissions mainly by using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). However, currently SAF cannot be produced at competitive prices relative to petroleum-based jet fuel. Pennycress is a crop whose oilseed could be used as a relatively low-cost feedstock to produce SAF, potentially benefiting farmers and the environment. This stochastic techno-economic analysis (TEA) studies an enterprise buying pennycress oilseed from farmers, extracting the bio-oil and selling it to a biorefinery that converts bio-oil into SAF. Maximum buying prices (MBP)—prices that yield a zero net present value—the crushing enterprise could pay farmers for pennycress oilseed are estimated. To conduct the analysis, discount rates are estimated based on financial data of biofuel firms, thus providing a realistic benchmark to evaluate profitability and feedstock buying prices. Estimated risk-adjusted discount rates vary between 12 and 17%, above rates typically used in similar valuations. Estimated stochastic MBP range between 10.18 and 11.73 ¢ pound−1, which is below the price at which farmers are willing to plant pennycress, according to recent research. By considering the crushing facility’s inherent cash flow structure and risk, the distributions of stochastic modified internal rate of return suggest the crushing enterprise could be economically attractive at a 14% discount rate, our most likely estimate. However, between 11 and 17% times the cash flow model is simulated, the firm falls under financial distress. Overall, the findings suggest potential barriers for deployment of a SAF supply chain without governmental incentives or related policies.

Future-Generation Perception: Equal or Not Equal? Long-Term Individual Discount Rates for Poland

Energy-related investments gain increasing attention nowadays, particularly in Poland due to clean-energy investment needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and counteract climate change. However, economic appraisal is problematic: the longevity of impacts inextricably involves intergenerational ethical considerations. A crucial parameter is the choice of a discount rate. The predominant approach to estimate the discount rate in EU countries is the Ramsey rule, based on macroeconomic data, but not referring directly to society’s preferences. Those are considered by studies using surveys to elicit individual discount rates (IDR), but rarely concentrating on intergenerational time frame. The paper aims at delivering an insight into the intergenerational intertemporal preferences for Poland (households, n = 471) focusing on whether respondents are willing to declare zero discount rate intergenerationally and whether their choices differ between the short- and long-term perspectives and between human lives and money. To elicit IDR, two hypothetical investment scenarios were designed: lifesaving programs and lottery gains with delays from 10 to 150 years accompanied by attitude and socioeconomic questions. The results indicate that IDR follows hyperbolic time-decline, and a considerable share of respondents (around 20%) are willing to treat future generations as equally important in the case of human lives, while this proportion for monetary gains is two times lower. The IDR drivers differ between lives and money in respect of socioeconomic profile and attitude characteristics as well as between intragenerational and intergenerational time frames. The findings support (a) the rationale for distinct treatment of intergenerational allocations, (b) the divergence of preferences between public and private impacts, and (c) the switch from single to declining discount rate regime in Poland.

Municipal OPEB Contributions: The Roles of Governance Structure, Fiscal, and Socioeconomic Factors During and After the Great Recession

Many governments offer other postemployment benefits (OPEB) to their employees, and discretionary contributions to OPEB plans are important to plan financial well-being. This paper reports a study of municipalities' actual annual contributions to their OPEB plans from fiscal year 2008 through 2015, a time span encompassing the Great Recession and subsequent gradual recovery. Giving effect to cities' governance structure (form of organization and extent of employee unionization) and certain fiscal and socioeconomic variables, we estimate a model of plan contributions normalized by the related actuarially required contributions. We find that Mayor-Council (MC) cities are associated with comparatively higher OPEB plan contributions relative to Council-Manager cities. We control for MC cities' discount rates to address the consequences of optimistic rate assumptions. The effect of unionization on contributions is evident directly, but unionization is not noteworthy when conditioned on form of government. This suggests that MC cities manage their OPEB plans in a fiscally accountable manner.

Yield Curve And Its Impact On Discount Rates In The Financial Evaluation Of A Project- Application case in Argentina

This paper introduces some theories that attempt to explain the behavior of the “Temporary Structure of Interest Rates” (TSIR), which observe the correlation between various variables of the economy and projected interest rates, which will later serve as a reference for the determination of the discount rates of the projected flows in the economic-financial evaluation of a productive investment project. The empirical analysis focuses on evaluating the required returns on Sovereign Bonds issued in the Argentine Republic in dollar currency, which determine a yield curve that shows high levels of projected inflation expectations, such as high levels in the definition of rates discount of projected flows. Resumen El presente trabajo introduce algunas teorías que intentan explicar el comportamiento de la “Estructura Temporal de las Tasas de Interés” (ETTI), que observan la correlación entre diversas variables de la economía y las tasas de interés proyectadas, que servirá luego como referencia para la determinación de las tasas de descuentos de los flujos proyectados en la evaluación económico financiero de un proyecto de inversión productiva. El análisis empírico se centra en evaluar los rendimientos exigidos en los Bonos soberanos emitidos en la República Argentina en moneda dólar, que determinan una curva de rendimientos que pone en evidencia niveles altos de expectativas de inflación proyectada, como niveles altos en la definición de las tasas de descuento de los flujos proyectados.

Dynamic Bargaining and Time-Consistency in Linear-State and Homogeneous Linear-Quadratic Cooperative Differential Games

Three different solution concepts are reviewed and computed for linear-state and homogeneous linear-quadratic cooperative differential games with asymmetric players. Discount rates can be nonconstant and/or different. Special attention is paid to the issues of time-consistency, agreeability and subgame-perfectness, both from the viewpoint of sustainability of cooperation and from the credibility of the announced equilibrium strategies.

The Value of Hybrid Aspen Coppice Investment under Different Discount Rate, Price and Management Scenarios: A Case Study of Estonia

Hybrid aspen is one of the most promising tree species for short-rotation forestry in Northern Europe. After the clearcutting of hybrid aspen plantation, the next generation arises from root and stump sprouts. The economic feasibility of different management strategies of hybrid aspen coppice stands has not yet been comprehensively evaluated in Northern Europe. We compared the land expectation values (LEVs) of hybrid aspen coppice stands managed according to four scenarios: three early thinning methods (corridor, cross-corridor and single-tree) followed by conventional management and intensive bioenergy production (repeated harvests in 5-year rotations) over a 25-year period in hemiboreal Estonia. We considered the historic price volatility of aspen wood assortments under various discount rates (1–20%). We found that the 25-year rotation with different early thinning methods was more profitable than short bioenergy cycles in the case of low discount rates (<5%). The LEV of short coppice cycles for only bioenergy production became more profitable in comparison with those by thinning methods, when higher discount rates (>10%) were applied. Hybrid aspen coppice stands can be managed profitably, but more risks are taken when the management strategy focuses only on bioenergy production.