A resolution to the NPV-IRR debate?

Michael Osborne

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2010, vol. 50, issue 2, 234-239

Abstract: Two criteria for choosing between capital investment projects are net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR). Sometimes they provide inconsistent rankings. This inconsistency sparked a debate about which criterion is better. The debate has lasted more than 100 years. This paper describes a new approach to the debate. The time value of money equation is a polynomial, and a polynomial of order n does not have a single root. It has n roots. The result of taking into account the n solutions for IRR is a new equation for NPV that suggests a resolution to the debate.

Keywords: Capital; budgeting; Complex; plane; Internal; rate; of; return; Net; present; value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062-9769(10)00003-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:50:y:2010:i:2:p:234-239

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance is currently edited by R. J. Arnould and J. E. Finnerty

More articles in The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().