The previous article was an introduction about the two basic decisions that corporate finance helps a corporation in making. Prima-facie, these two decisions may look pretty simple. After all everyone raises money in their daily lives and puts it to productive use. Simple accounting can tell us whether or not we should make those financing and investing decisions. So, why is there a need for a complicated subject called corporate finance to make these decisions? Well, it turns out there is a need? The need arises because of this concept of nominal and real value of money. This article will explain why corporate finance is required:

The Concept of Inflation

We are all intuitively aware of the concept of inflation. We know that money loses its value every year. The same amount of money will purchase less and less every year. Let’s say that $100 is required to purchase a certain commodity of goods today. So if there is an inflation of 10%, the same goods will be available for a $110 next year.

Real income is an economic measure that provides an estimation of an individual’s actual purchasing power in the open market after accounting for inflation. It subtracts an economic inflation rate. Real Money Supply money supply expressed in base-year dollars, calculated by dividing the money supply by a price index. People also search for. According to Money Terms: “In real terms means the change in a financial number after correcting for the effect of inflation. For example, if a company’s revenues have increased 4% over the previous year, but prices were (on average) 2% higher than in the previous year, then its revenues have only increased 2% in real.

Introduction to Nominal Value of Money

So, if we made an investment that was yielding 9% return this year, we would have a total of $109 next year from the $100 we had invested. In accounting terms we would have a profit of $9. This is because we are only considering the nominal values. Nominal values do not consider the effect of inflation, opportunity cost of capital and such other forces which cause the value of money to decrease in a given time period.

The Problem with Nominal Values to Measure a Firm’s Performance:

Nominal values present a distorted image of the firm’s performance to its shareholders and this is to say the least. Consider the case we discussed above. Here, the firm has lost 1% purchasing power. This means they were better off consuming the $100 in year 1 and could have purchased more goods with it rather than investing it and consuming $109 a year later. Thus, if nominal values are considered, firms will end up eroding their capital by investing their money in projects that offer a rate of return that is below the firm’s cost of capital.

Introduction to Real Value of Money

To offset this problem, specialists in corporate finance have come up with the concept of real value of money. The real value of money takes into account inflation, opportunity cost of capital and such other forces. Thus, firms that base their calculations on these inflation adjusted values make better financial decisions as compared to those that do not. The calculation for both real as well as nominal values is simple and can be done with the help of the following formula:

Real Value = Nominal Value / (1 + (i / 100))

i = The prevailing inflation rate in the market

Subjectivity in Real Value of Money:

It must be understood that the real and nominal values of money are subjective. This is because, they are determined using the inflation rate. There is no single measure of inflation. The government itself produces multiple estimates of inflation. Also, for the purpose of the company’s calculation, these measures may not be good enough. So the company may create its own inflation index depending on which the real values are calculated. Thus, there is widespread subjectivity in this calculation. Different companies use different rates to convert nominal values to real values.

The biggest take-away from the concept of nominal and real values is that money in one time period is not directly comparable to money in another time period. It is for this reason we have to calculate present values, future values and the like. These calculations form the backbone of corporate finance.

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The real economy concerns the production, purchase and flow of goods and services (like oil, bread and labour) within an economy. It is contrasted with the financial economy, which concerns the aspects of the economy that deal purely in transactions of fiat money and other financial assets, which represent ownership or claims to ownership of real sector goods and services.^[1]

In the real economy, spendings are considered to be 'real' as money is used to effect non-notional transactions, for example wages paid to employees to enact labour, bills paid for provision of fuel, or food purchased for consumption. The transaction includes the deliverance of something other than money or a financial asset. In this way, the real economy is focused on the activities that allow human beings to directly satisfy their needs and desires, apart from any speculative considerations. Economists became increasingly interested in the real economy (and its interaction with the financial economy) in the late 20th century as a result of increased global financialization, described by Krippner as 'a pattern of accumulation in which profits accrue primarily through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production'.^[2]

The real sector is sensitive to the effect liquidity has on asset prices, for example if the market is saturated and asset prices collapse. In the real sector this uncertainty can mean a slowdown in aggregate demand (and in the monetary sector, an increase in the demand for money).^[3]

Schools of thought[edit]

In the neoclassicalschool of economics, the classical dichotomy dictates that real and nominal values in the economy can be analysed distinctly. Thus the real sector value is determined by an actor's tastes and preferences and the cost of production, while the monetary sector only plays the part of influencing the price level, so in this simplified example the role of the supply and demand is generally limited to the quantity theory of money).^[4]^[3]

Keynesian and Marxist economic theory rejects the classical dichotomy. Keynesians and monetarists reject it on the basis that prices are sticky – prices fail to adjust in the short run, so that an increase in the money supply raises aggregate demand and thus alters real macroeconomic variables. Post-Keynesians reject the classic dichotomy as well, for different reasons, emphasizing the role of banks in creating money, as in monetary circuit theory.

Dichotomous market theory proposes that real sector outcomes are independent of the monetary sector, related also to the idea of money neutrality.^[3]

Real property[edit]

Higher interest rates in the 1980s and 1990s reduced cash flows and decreased asset prices in several OECD countries especially as declining prices in real estate and loan losses reduced equity in the banking sector lending decreased. As real estate values declined sharply in the Northeastern United States lending also decreased.^[5]

Real variables[edit]

Since the real economy refers to all real or non financial elements of an economy, it can be modeled by using only real variables, which don't need a monetary system to be represented. In this way, real variables are:

Wages: don't need to be expressed in monetary term, they can be expressed in real terms in any real unit
- Ex:

Real Money Economics Definition