Investment, Hedging, and Consumption Smoothing

Jianjun Miao and Neng Wang

Finance from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper analyzes a risk averse entrepreneur's real investment decision under incomplete markets. The entrepreneur smoothes his intertemporal consumption by investing in both a risk-free asset and a risky asset, which allows him to partially hedge against the project cash flow risk. We show that risk aversion lowers both the project value upon investment and the option value of waiting to invest through the precautionary saving effect. Furthermore, risk aversion delays investment since the project value is reduced more than the option value to invest. It is also shown that although hedging can reduce the cash flow risk, it may have a positive or negative return effect, depending on the correlation between the cash flow risk and the market. Consequently, investment timing is not monotonic with the extent of hedging opportunity. Finally, welfare implications of hedging are analyzed.

JEL-codes: G (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2004-07-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fin and nep-rmg
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 46
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0407014

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