Capital Budgeting: A 1990 Study Of Fortune 500 Company Practices

Abstract

Capital budgeting investment decisions are fertile ground for researchers because these decisions both involve the use of a large portion of a firm’s assets and require predictions of the future. Various techniques are used to analyze capital budgeting projects. Among these are (1) net present value (2) internal rate of return (3) payback and (40 several averaging methods. This paper seeks to determine what methods are currently used by major American firms to determine if the more theoretically correct methods are employed and how firms implement and monitor the techniques used. The authors surveyed the “Fortune 500 Companies” and received some surprising responses. Replies from firms indicated that most firms use the theoretically superior discounting methods when analyzing capital budgeting problems. However, almost 21% of the respondents stated that payback was their preferred method for analysis. The study further showed that payback, while popular, was used for relatively small projects. The study revealed one major area of concern which was that of review and feedback. Approximately 20% of the firms surveyed had no review mechanism and thus may be making poor decisions because of failure to adjust their models as business conditions change. In summary, the study has two surprising findings regarding capital budgeting. First, almost 21% of the responding firms used payback as the preferred method of analysis. While most of the projects where payback was applied were small, the wide acceptance of payback was surprising. Second, and perhaps of greater importance, was the failure by approximately 20% of the firms to employ a review procedure. Without such a procedure, those firms will be unable to adapt quickly to changes in the business environment.