Defining the payback period for nonconventional cash flows: An axiomatic approach

Mikhail V. Sokolov

The Engineering Economist, 2026, vol. 71, issue 2, 159-173

Abstract: The payback period is unambiguously defined for conventional investment projects—projects in which a series of cash outflows is followed by a series of cash inflows. Its definition for nonconventional projects is more challenging, since their balances (cumulative cash flow streams) may have multiple break-even points. Academics and practitioners offer a few contradictory recipes to manage this issue, suggesting to use the first break-even point of the balance, the last break-even point of the balance, or the moment in time at which the cumulative sum of net cash inflows first exceeds the total sum of net cash outflows. In this article, we show that the last break-even point of the project balance is the only definition of the payback period consistent with a set of economically meaningful axioms. An analogous result is established for the discounted payback period.

Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1080/0013791X.2026.2644849

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