Gamba, Andrea, Sick, Gordon A. and Aranda León, Carmen. (2008) Investment under uncertainty, debt and taxes. Economic Notes, Vol.37 (No.1). pp. 31-58. ISSN 0391-5026

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Abstract

It is common practice in financial derivative valuation to use a discount factor based on the riskless debt rate. But, to what extent is this discount factor appropriate for cash flows emerging in capital budgeting? To answer this question, we introduce a framework for real asset valuation that considers both personal and corporate taxation. We first discuss broad circumstances under which personal taxes do not affect valuation. We show that the appropriate discount rate for equity-financed flows in a risk-neutral setting is an equity rate that differs from the riskless debt rate by a tax wedge due to the presence of personal taxation. We extend this result to the valuation of the interest tax shield for exogenous debt policy with default risk. Interest tax shields, which accrue at a net rate corresponding to the difference between the corporate tax rate and a tax rate related to the personal tax rates, can have either positive or negative values. We also provide an illustrative real options application of our valuation approach to the case of an option to delay investment in a project, showing that the application of Black and Scholes formula may be incorrect in presence of personal taxes.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Finance Group Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School
Journal or Publication Title:	Economic Notes
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
ISSN:	0391-5026
Date:	February 2008
Volume:	Vol.37
Number:	No.1
Number of Pages:	28
Page Range:	pp. 31-58
Identification Number:	10.1111/j.1468-0300.2008.00193.x
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/44764

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