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Open AccessJournal Article

The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment

Merton H. Miller
- 01 Jan 1958 - 
- Vol. 48, Iss: 3, pp 261-297
TLDR
In this article, the effect of financial structure on market valuations has been investigated and a theory of investment of the firm under conditions of uncertainty has been developed for the cost-of-capital problem.
Abstract
The potential advantages of the market-value approach have long been appreciated; yet analytical results have been meager. What appears to be keeping this line of development from achieving its promise is largely the lack of an adequate theory of the effect of financial structure on market valuations, and of how these effects can be inferred from objective market data. It is with the development of such a theory and of its implications for the cost-of-capital problem that we shall be concerned in this paper. Our procedure will be to develop in Section I the basic theory itself and to give some brief account of its empirical relevance. In Section II we show how the theory can be used to answer the cost-of-capital questions and how it permits us to develop a theory of investment of the firm under conditions of uncertainty. Throughout these sections the approach is essentially a partial-equilibrium one focusing on the firm and "industry". Accordingly, the "prices" of certain income streams will be treated as constant and given from outside the model, just as in the standard Marshallian analysis of the firm and industry the prices of all inputs and of all other products are taken as given. We have chosen to focus at this level rather than on the economy as a whole because it is at firm and the industry that the interests of the various specialists concerned with the cost-of-capital problem come most closely together. Although the emphasis has thus been placed on partial-equilibrium analysis, the results obtained also provide the essential building block for a general equilibrium model which shows how those prices which are here taken as given, are themselves determined. For reasons of space, however, and because the material is of interest in its own right, the presentation of the general equilibrium model which rounds out the analysis must be deferred to a subsequent paper.

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References
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General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

TL;DR: In this article, a general theory of the rate of interest was proposed, and the subjective and objective factors of the propensity to consume and the multiplier were considered, as well as the psychological and business incentives to invest.

Distribution of incomes of corporations among dividends, retained earnings and taxes

J Lintner
TL;DR: Lintner as discussed by the authors discusses the distribution of income of corporations among dividends, retained earnings, and taxes in the context of the Sixtyeighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association.
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Capital Equipment Analysis: The Required Rate of Profit

Myron J. Gordon, +1 more
- 01 Oct 1956 - 
TL;DR: The interest in capital equipment analysis that has been evident in the business literature of the past five years is the product of numerous social, economic, and business developments of the postwar period.
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The theory of investment value

TL;DR: The theory of investment value is a popular topic in finance fandom powered by wikia as discussed by the authors, where many investing theories have been proposed, e.g., investment multiplier theory, investment multiplier with diagram, the theory of the investment multiplier, investment value maximization theory, and investment value minimization theory.
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