The WACC Fallacy: The Real Effects of Using a Unique Discount Rate

Philipp Krüger, Augustin Landier and David Thesmar
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Philipp Krueger

No 11-222, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: We document investment distortions induced by the use of a single discount rate within firms. According to textbook capital budgeting, firms should value any project using a discount rate determined by the risk characteristics of the project. If they use a unique company-wide discount rate, they overinvest (resp. underinvest) in divisions with a market beta higher (resp. lower) than the firm's core industry beta. We directly test this consequence of the WACC fallacy and establish a robust and significant positive relationship between division-level investment and the spread between the division's market beta and the firm's core industry beta. Consistently with bounded rationality theories, this bias is stronger when the measured cost of taking the wrong discount rate is low, for instance, when the division is small. Finally,we measure the value loss due to the WACC fallacy in the context of acquisitions. Bidder abnormal returns are higher in diversifying mergers and acquisitions in which the bidder's beta exceeds that of the target. On average, the present value loss is about 0.7% of the bidder's market equity.

Keywords: Investment; Behavioral finance; Cost of capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G31 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The WACC Fallacy: The Real Effects of Using a Unique Discount Rate (2015)
Working Paper: The WACC Fallacy: The Real Effects of Using a Unique Discount Rate (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:24151

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