Evaluating Capital Projects

The successful evaluation of capital projects requires not only a thorough understanding of traditional techniques of capital budgeting but advanced techniques as well. Riahi-Belkaoui examines the multidimensionality of capital budgeting in its various facets and in ways that executives with no special facility in the subject can follow. He covers replacement decisions, capital rationing, capital budgeting under inflation uncertainty, capital budgeting in a multinational setting with attention to political risks, social project evaluation, and concepts of wealth measurement and distribution. The result is a wide ranging treatment for executive decision makers in finance, banking, investment, and general management, and for their colleagues with similar interests in the academic community.

Riahi-Belkaoui begins by examining the principles underlying the time value of money. In Chapter Two he introduces capital budgeting and in Chapter Three moves to advanced capital budgeting. There he discusses such advanced topics as replacement decisions, capital rationing, and capital budgeting under uncertainty and inflation. In Chapter Four he takes up the same issues associated with capital budgeting but in a global context, and in Chapter Five, the determination of political risk and its use in capital budgeting internationally. Chapter Six compares the techniques of leasing versus purchasing and their reliance on capital budgeting techniques. In Chapter Seven he turns to the techniques of capital budgeting applied to social projects, and ends the book with an examination of the behavior and cognitive implications of wealth measurement and distribution. This is a useful survey and examination of the traditional and advanced techniques of capital budgeting and their applications in domestic and international contexts.