Unit 3: Interest Rates and Investment Demand
Investment: Money spend or expenditures on things like new plants (factories), capital equipment (machinery), technology (hardware + software), new homes, and inventories (goods sold by producers)
How do businesses make investment decisions?
- Cost / Benefit Analysis
How does business determine the benefits?
- The expected rate of return
How does business count the cost?
- Interest costs
How does business determine the amount of investment they undertake?
- Compare the expected rate of return to interest cost
- If expected return > interest cost. then invest
- If expected return < interest cost, then do not
What's the difference?
- Nominal is the observable rate of interest while real subtracts out inflation (π%) and is only known x post facto.
Formula: r% = i% - π%
What determines the cost of an investment decision?
- The real interest rate (r%)
What is the shape of the investment demand curve?
- Downward sloping
Why?
- When interest rates are high, fewer investments are profitable; when interest rates are low, more investments are profitable
- Conversely, there are few investments that yield high interest rates of return, and many that yield low rates of return
Expected Rates of Return
How do businesses make investment decisions?
- Cost / Benefit Analysis
How does business determine the benefits?
- The expected rate of return
How does business count the cost?
- Interest costs
How does business determine the amount of investment they undertake?
- Compare the expected rate of return to interest cost
- If expected return > interest cost. then invest
- If expected return < interest cost, then do not
Real vs. Nominal Interest Rate

What's the difference?
- Nominal is the observable rate of interest while real subtracts out inflation (π%) and is only known x post facto.
Formula: r% = i% - π%
What determines the cost of an investment decision?
- The real interest rate (r%)
Investment Demand Curve
- Downward sloping
Why?
- When interest rates are high, fewer investments are profitable; when interest rates are low, more investments are profitable
- Conversely, there are few investments that yield high interest rates of return, and many that yield low rates of return
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