Thursday, March 14, 2013

Investment Demand

Investment→money spent (expenditures) on:

  • new plants (factories)
  • capital equipment (machinery)
  • tech. (hardware and software)
  • new homes
  • inventories (goods sold by producers) ** Walmart has "just-in-time (best) system
Expected Rates of Return
  • How does business make investment decisions? → cost/benefit analysis
  • How does business determine the benefits? → expected rate of return
  • How does business count the cost? → interest costs
  • How does business determine amount of investment they undertake? →compare expected rate of return to interest cost **if expected return>interest rate, invest**if expected return<interest rate, DO NOT invest
Real (r%) v. Nominal (i%)
-Difference: nominal is observable rate of interest. Real subtracts out inflation (π%) aka "ex post facto"
-Compute real interest rate (r%)=i%-π%
-What determines cost of an investment decision? → the real interest rate (r%)

Investment Demand Curve (ID)
-downward sloping curve
-Why?
  • when ir (interest rates) are ↑, fewer investments are profitable; when ir are ↓, more investments are profitable
  • conversely, few investments yield ↑ rates of return, and many yield ↓ rates of return
Shifts in ID
  • cost of production
  • business taxes
  • technological change
  • stock of capital
  • expectations
Investment Demand Graph:


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