Medium-sized firms in Peru: A review of capital budgeting practices

Abstract

The objective of this article is to know what are the techniques used by medium-sized companies to evaluate their investment projects, and in this way to determine if there is a gap between theory and practice. In addition, we sought to identify which characteristics of the company and its general manager influence the use of these techniques. For this, a survey was elaborated and applied to 126 medium-sized companies in the department of Piura (Peru). Based on this, it was found that a large part of the sample uses at least one technique where cash flows are discounted, which is supported by the theory; therefore, it is evident that the gap between theory and practice is not very wide.