In this study we conduct a survey to investigate how firms make investment decisions.
The focus of earlier surveys has been whether or not firms use discounted cash flow methods and
how they determine the appropriate discount rates. The primary findings of these studies are as
follows: First, over time, firms have shown an increasing tendency to rely on discounted cash
flow (DCF) methods to evaluate projects. Second, most firms apparently use their weighted
average cost of capital (WACC) as the discount rate in evaluating their projects. Third, it also
seems to be the case that in computing their discount rates, firms typically infer the cost of equity
from the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Figure 2 displays the increased usage of these
models and techniques over time.
However, even though capital budgeting methods use both hurdle rates and cash flows as
inputs, previous survey studies typically do not focus on the cash flow component of the capital
budgeting methods. For example, they do not examine whether firms account for various factors
(such as sales erosion, inflation, sunk costs, etc.) correctly in computing project cash flows and
also do not examine cash flow/hurdle rate interactions. In this paper we fill this gap. As in
earlier studies we find that firms have become increasingly sophisticated in using discounted
cashflow methods, and in relying on CAPM to determine their hurdle rates. However, we also
find that they have a checkered record when it comes to dealing with cashflow related issues.
For example, we find that two thirds of our survey firms correctly incorporate inflation into their
analysis. Similarly, they appear to successfully determine the domestic/foreign currency
denomination of cash-flows and discount rates of cross-border investments. Our results also
show that the survey firms have a reasonably good record in computing levered and unlevered
cashflows. However, they do not appear to have as good a record when it comes to matching
cashflows and discount rates. Furthermore, half of our survey firms make the mistake of
including sunk costs in their cashflow projections. They also do not properly account for the
potential erosion in the sales of existing products that could be induced by new product
introductions. The survey firms also have somewhat of a mixed record in changing their hurdle
rates when market conditions change, and in using divisional versus firm-wide hurdle rates.