Naval Postgraduate School
Amilcar A. Menichini

[Home] [Curriculum Vitae] [Research] [Teaching]

I am interested in developing dynamic models to understand firm decisions. My objective is to provide structural answers to the regularities reported by the empirical literature in corporate finance. I am also working on ascertaining the asset pricing ability of those models.


Peer-Reviewed Publications

  1. Ahn, Tom and Amilcar A. Menichini (2022) "Optimal Long-Run Talent Management of the Department of Defense Acquisition Workforce in Response to COVID-19: A Dynamic Programming Approach," Defense Acquisition Research Journal, vol. 29, pp. 50-77

    2. What we find: workers choose not to leave the DoD while the civilian sector suffers from the impact of the pandemic. However, once the civilian sector has recovered enough, these same workers quit at an accelerated rate.


  2. Menichini, Amilcar A. (2020) "How Do Firm Characteristics Affect the Corporate Income Tax Revenue?," International Review of Economics and Finance, vol. 65, pp. 146-162

    3. What we find: all U.S. industries seem to be far from the prohibitive range of the Laffer curve. The elasticity of capital is the main corporate determinant of the income tax rate that maximizes tax revenues.


  3. Lazzati, Natalia and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2018) "A Dynamic Model of Firm Valuation," The Financial Review, vol. 53, pp. 499-531

    4. What we find: a dynamic version of the dividend discount model (solved in closed-form) produces equity value forecasts that are very close to market prices, and explains a large proportion of the observed variation in share prices.


  4. Menichini, Amilcar A. (2017) "On the Value and Determinants of the Interest Tax Shields," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, vol. 48 (3), pp. 725-748

    5. What we find: the value of the interest tax shields represents less than 5% of firm value, and it varies considerably across U.S. industries.


  5. Cunha, Jesse M., Amilcar A. Menichini, and Gregory Moynihan. (2017) "The Retention Impacts of the Forthcoming U.S. Military Retirement Reform," Journal of Defense Management, vol. 7 (1), pp. 1-4

    6. (Appendix: Survey)

    What we find: survey results from U.S. military personnel suggest the new retirement system will have a considerable impact on service member retention.


  6. Lazzati, Natalia and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2016) "Hot Spot Policing: A Study of Place-Based Strategies to Crime Prevention," Southern Economic Journal, vol. 82 (3), pp. 893-913

    7. What we find: the optimal crime reduction strategy does involve differential targeting of potentially high crime locations. However, hot spots still remain at the crime-minimizing police allocation.


  7. Lazzati, Natalia and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2015) "A Dynamic Model of the Firm: Structural Explanations of Key Empirical Findings," The Financial Review, vol. 50 (3), pp. 341-361

    8. (Appendix: Sensitivity Analysis of Relevant Model Variables)

    What we find: a dynamic model of the firm can explain many important findings about the cross-section of firms, such as the negative relations between profitability and leverage, and between dividends and investment-cash flow sensitivities, as well as the existence of zero-debt firms and their observed characteristics.


  8. Cunha, Jesse M., Amilcar A. Menichini, and Adam J. Crockett. (2015) "The Retention Effects of High Years of Service Cliff-Vesting Pension Plans," Economics Letters, vol. 126 (1), pp. 6-9

    9. What we find: removing the 20-year cliff-vesting provision from the Australian military's retirement plan considerably increases attrition rates.


  9. Lazzati, Natalia and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2015) "A Dynamic Approach to the Dividend Discount Model," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies, vol. 18 (3), pp. 1-36

    10. What we find: we quantify the value of the real options and secular growth for different U.S. industries, and identify the firm characteristics with the greatest impact on those components of the stock price.


  10. Menichini, Amilcar A. (2014) "On the Determinants of Firm Leverage: Evidence from a Structural Estimation," International Journal of Managerial Finance, vol. 11 (2), pp. 179-197

    11. (Appendix: Construction of the SNP Density Function)

    What we find: a dynamic model of the firm consistently reproduces the convergence and stability of leverage reported by Lemmon et al. (2008), and suggests their causes (e.g., convergence is due to the mean-reversion of profits while stability depends on the different firm characteristics in the cross-section.)


Technical Reports

  1. Menichini, Amilcar A. (2023) "Analysis of Capital Budgeting Methods in Support of the DoD Cash Flow Model," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report

  2. Ahn, Tom and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2021) "Retention Analysis Modeling for the Acquisition Workforce II," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, NPS-HR-21-031

  3. Tick, Simona L., Jeremy A. Arkes, Robert J. Eger, Mark E. Nissen, Erik Helzer, and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2021) "Assessing Inclusion Behaviors and Impact of Inclusion within the Fleet," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, NPS-21-N315-A

  4. Ahn, Tom and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2020) "Retention Analysis Modeling for the Acquisition Workforce," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, NPS-HR-20-001

  5. Ahn, Tom, Amilcar A. Menichini, and Simona Tick. (2019) "Retention Analysis Model (RAM) for Navy Manpower and Personnel Analysis," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-19-006

  6. Arkes, Jeremy, Tom Ahn, Amilcar A. Menichini, and William Gates. (2019) "Retention Analysis Model (RAM) for Navy Manpower Analysis," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-19-003

  7. Menichini, Amilcar A. and Simona Tick. (2019) "The Role of College Education on the Retention and Promotion of Naval Officers," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-19-002

  8. Eger, Robert J. and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2017) "Identifying a Total Cost Framework for the Navy Enlisted Supply Chain (NESC)," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-17-002

  9. Menichini, Amilcar A. and Mehmet Celiktas. (2016) "Case: Real Options in Defense R&D," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-16-003

  10. Eger, Robert J. and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2015) "Evaluating the Financial Effectiveness of Recruiting Investments in Marketing and Advertising," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-15-002

  11. Eger, Robert J. and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2014) "DoN Online Fraud Protection Riding on an Integrated Business Intelligence Foundation," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-14-003

  12. Cunha, Jesse M. and Amilcar A. Menichini. (2014) "Pensions and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from the U.S. Military," Naval Postgraduate School, Technical Report, GSBPP-14-001


Work in Progress

  1. Menichini, Amilcar A. "Risk-Free vs Risky Components of Debt"

  2. Menichini, Amilcar A. "A Dynamic Implementation of CAPM"

  3. Menichini, Amilcar A. "On the Determinants of Endogenous Firm Growth"

  4. Menichini, Amilcar A. "An Empirical Evaluation of the Dividend vs. the Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivites"

  5. Lamoureux, Christopher G., Hayden Kane, and Amilcar A. Menichini, "A Taxonomy of Option Quotes and Trades"