Continuous Compounding and Annualization

Philip A. Viton

January 11, 2006

Contents
1 Introduction 1

2 Continuous Compounding 2

3 Present Value with Continuous Compounding 4

4 Annualization 5

5 A Special Problem 6

1 Introduction

In our discussion of highway maintenance we will discuss optimal maintenance

policies, in which we choose the best interval to resurface the roads. This involves
maintenance costs spread out over time and we know, in principle, how to handle
them: we convert everything to present value. However, if we want to attack the
optimality problem using calculus, then the discrete-time methods developed in
(eg) CRP 763 won't quite do. The reason is that if we consider, say, a 30-year
policy and then think of extending it one year, we get a jump discontinuity in the
result, and this makes calculus effectively unusable.

The solution is to consider time as varying continuously, and this note dis-
cusses the analytics of continuous-time discounting. A related problem is that we

1
want to consider a single representative year of the maintenance policy, and this
requires that we “annualize” the relevant present value — that is, convert it to an
equivalent once-a-year quantity. A nal problem is that the particular sequence of
maintenance costs we shall be concerned with is special: it consists of costs which
are incurred periodically, once every so-many years (that is, the yerars in which we
actually perform the maintenance). The nal section considers this special prob-
lem.

2 Continuous Compounding

Suppose you deposit P.0/ today (at time 0) in a bank. At the end of 1 year the
bank pays you interest, calculating it at an annual rate of r . Then at the end of one
year, your P.0/ has become
P.0/.1 C r /
Now suppose that the bank pays you interest twice a year, a six-month intervals. If
r is the annual rate, then it will compute each payment based on a rate of r=2; and
there will be two payments. So at the end of year 1 P.0/ will become
h r i r
S.1; 2/ D P.0/ 1 C 1C
2 2
r 2
D P.0/ 1 C
2
where in S.1; 2/ the rst argument (1) indicates that this is at the end of 1 year, and
the second (2) indicates that compounding is done twice a year.

What about three times a year? The effective interest rate is r=3; and there are
three compounding periods, so at the end of the year P.0/ becomes
r r r
S.1; 3/ D P.0/ 1 C 1C 1C
3 3 3
r 3
D P.0/ 1 C :
3

We can see where this is going. If payments are compounded k times a year,
then at the end of 1 year P.0/ becomes
r k
S.1; k/ D P.0/ 1 C :
k

2
 If you leave your money on deposit for t years with compounding k times a
year there will be kt separate compoundings, so at the end of t years you will have
r kt
S.t; k/ D P.0/ 1 C
k
Note that S.t; k/ is a period-t quantity.

Now suppose that we allow the number of annual compoundings k to become

larger and larger. In the limit we arrive at “continuous compounding” — in effect,
the bank is making your interest payments “all the time”. Of course, the “effective
rate” per payment — the analog of r=k — gets smaller and smaller; but the number
of payments gets larger and larger. What will P.0/ become the end of t years? To
study this we need to look at what happens as the number of annual compoundings
k tends to in nity, that is:
r kt
S.t; 1/ D lim P.0/ 1 C
k!1 k
r kt
D P.0/ lim 1 C
k!1 k
If we write x D r=k then we can write the limit expression as
rt
lim .1 C x/1=x
k!1

rt
(since .1 C x/1=x D .1 C x/r t=x D .1 C x/r t=.r=k/ D .1 C x/kt /: Since x D r=k
then k ! 1 means that x ! 0: Note that the outer exponent doesn't depend on
k, so we can write this as
rt
lim .1 C x/1=x
x!0

From the Binomial Theorem the quantity (1 C x/1=x tends to e .D 2:718 3 : : : / as

x tends to zero, and we have
rt
lim .1 C x/1=x D er t :
x!0

In other words, with continuous compounding, P.0/ will grow in t years to

S.t; 1/ D P.0/er t

3
3 Present Value with Continuous Compounding

Suppose that someone offers you S.t/ to be received in year t. To nd the present
value of this we need to nd a quantity P.0/ such that you will be indifferent
between receiving P.0/ now and S.t/ in year t. If your market opportunities are
given by a banking system which compounds continuously at annual rate r; then at
the end of t years your P.0/ will compound to

P.0/er t

In order for you to be indifferent between S.t/ in period t — note that since we
are now assuming continuous compounding, this is the same as what we wrote as
S.t; 1/ in the last section — and receiving P.0/ now and leaving it on deposit
until period t we must have
S.t/ D P.0/er t
or, solving for the year-0 quantity, the present value:
rt
P.0/ D S.t/e :

In other words, with continuous compounding, the present value of S.t/ received
in year t is
S.t/e r t

For reference, here is a table comparing the present value of $1 received at

various times t and at various interest (discount) rates r , using continuous and
discrete time compounding;

1
r t e rt .1Cr /t
:03 10 :7408 :7441
20 :5488 :5537
30 :4066 :4120
:05 10 :6065 :6139
20 :3679 :3769
30 :2231 :2314
:08 10 :4492 :4632
20 :2019 :2145
30 :0967 :0994
As we can see, the results are generally quite close.

4
4 Annualization

Consider a project which has a single up-front (time-0) cost and a bene ts ex-
tending through time. One way to evaluate the project is to convert the stream of
bene ts to its present value; then we can directly compare the two. But we some-
times want to think about what happens at each year of the project, and in this case
we need to compare the annual bene t to some portion of the cost. To handle this,
it is logical to think about reversing the idea of present value: that is, to construct
a stream of costs which is equivalent to the original (time-0) cost. Since there are
an in nite number of ways to do this, we shall also require that each of the costs in
the constructed stream be the same: in other words we construct an annuity which
is equivalent to the original time-0 cost. This process is known as annualization: it
converts a single quantity to an equivalent annuity.

Suppose you invest P.O/ now in some (public) project that is projected to last
T years. We seek an (annual) annuity amount A that is equivalent in present value
to P.0/ now. With continuous compounding, we will need to add up the present
value at each possible time between 0 and T: With continuous time, this means that
the present value of our T -period annuity is an integral:
Z tDT
A e r t dt
tD0
rT
e 1
D A
r
e rT
1
D A
r
To nd the annuity amount A which is equivalent to a project expenditure of P.0/
now, we must solve
1 e rT
P.0/ D A
r
for A; and the solution is
r P.0/
A D
1 e rT
r
D P.0/ rT
1 e

In other words, incurring a project cost of P.0/ now is equivalent to incurring

a cost of
r
P.0/
1 e rT

5
in each of years 0 to T: This is the annualized cost over a T year project life. If the
project lasts forever, we need to see what happens as T ! 1: By inspection, the
term e r T tends to zero and the annualized cost over an in nite project lifetime is
therefore:
P.0/r:

5 A Special Problem

In our discussion of road maintenance we will consider a special situation: a main-

tenance policy incurs a cost of C every T years starting in year T , and this pattern
continues inde nitely. We want to nd the annualized cost of the policy. We do this
in two steps: rst, we nd the present value of the stream, and then we annualize
that present value.

First, what is the present value of the stream? The rst cost comes in year T I its
present value is Ce r T : The second comes in year 2T I its present value is Ce 2r T :
So we're looking at a series of present value terms like
rT 2r T 3r T
Ce C Ce C Ce C :::
rT 2r T 3r T
D C.e Ce Ce C :::/
where the series extends forever. We handle this as follows: we rst compute the
value of the series when it extends out for J terms, and then we take the limit as J
tends to in nity.

Ignoring the constant C for the moment, our J -term series is

rT 2r T 3r T Jr T
U De Ce Ce C Ce
We now use a trick very much like the one we use when summing a geometric
series, except that this time we multiply each term by e r T : The result is
rT 2r T 3r T Jr T .J C1/r T
Ue De Ce C Ce Ce :
Subtracting, we obtain
rT rT rT .J C1/r T
U Ue D U .1 e /De e
(since everything in between cancels out), or
rT .J C1/r T
e e
UD rT
:
1 e

6
 Now, what happens as J tends to in nity? The second term in the numerator
vanishes (tends to zero), and we have
rT
e
UD rT
:
1 e

We can make this look a bit neater by multiplying top and bottom by er T : the
result is
1
U D rT
e 1
and our conclusion is that the present value of in in nite stream of costs C incurred
every T years is:
C
er T 1

Finally we annualize this present value. Since the stream of costs continues
inde nitely, the annualization is the one shown at the end of the last section, and
we see that the annualized present value is
rC
:
er T 1