Reclaiming Multifaceted Financial Risk Information from Correlated Cash Flows under Uncertainty

Financial risks associated with capital investments are often measured with different feasibility indicators such as the net present value (NPV), the internal rate of return (IRR), the payback period (PBP), and the benefit-cost ratio (BCR). This paper aims at demonstrating practical applications of probabilistic feasibility analysis techniques for an integrated feasibility evaluation of the IRR and PBP. The IRR and PBP are concurrently analyzed in order to measure the profitability and liquidity, respectively, of a cash flow. The cash flow data of a real wind turbine project is used in the study. The presented approach consists of two phases. First, two newly reported analysis techniques are used to carry out a series of what-if analyses for the IRR and PBP. Second, the relationship between the IRR and PBP is identified using Monte Carlo simulation. The results demonstrate that the integrated feasibility evaluation of stochastic cash flows becomes a more viable option with the aide of newly developed probabilistic analysis techniques. It is also shown that the relationship between the IRR and PBP for the wind turbine project can be used as a predictive model for the actual IRR at the end of the service life based on the actual PBP of the project early in the service life.