FRoI

      "No theoretical basis exists for treating one type of capital differently from another simply because                                                          one type is harder to measure accurately."                                                                 Measuring Capital and Technology: An Expanded Framework, Corrado, et al, 2005, p.20

The Future Return on Investment (FRoI) assigns future values to streams of services in and beyond GAAP. It then engages stakeholders in deciding probability or speed of change in P's & Q's that matter to the task at hand--or agreeing what counts. Workspace discussion thus considers whether transition matters, given stakeholder 'exit strategies'. Probabilities are higher If stakeholders see the task resonating with economic theories of convergence and a Law of One Price (LOP). FRoI will then be higher than an RoI based on past performance yet below one based on conventional shadow pricing. Collecting relevant information is then about ensuring a workspace considers all stakeholder views of probabilities and speed of change, as well as the prospective allocation of the return. The task is then setting & monitoring performance.

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Agreeing what counts

FRoI above past RoI implies arbitrage, which markets have mostly competed away for services recognized and valued in GAAP. Hence, 'excess' profits or Gross Operating Surplus are mostly from society's productive base beyond Property Assets (PA). The shadow gain ends when GAAP adjusts its boundary between consumption and investment outlays to recognize and value more of society's productive base as PA--based on newly legally enforceable property rights. This happened, for example, with computer software and R&D outlays; key economists champion other use cases.



Collecting relevant information

FRoI differs from conventional shadow pricing by booking changes in a standard, double-entry, accounting schema. The neglected stream of services is treated as an unrequited transfer from the local society to the consumer, matching an increase in that consumer's outlays. It is an instantiation of residual rights. Reclassification as PA is then a move to less imperfect contracts. That either formalizes or modifies the Q behind the unrequited transfer. It certainly formalized the P, which may lead to holding gains or losses relative to what FRoI expected.

Setting & monitoring performance

It matters whether a non-GAAP stream of services is attached to Property Assets. When it is, something akin to broken cross-rates arises between consumers who do and don't value that service. Resource allocation is sub-optimal until such market segmentation ends.

An OconEco work in progress includes an example for water, which is treated differently by property rights east and west of the Mississippi. It posits cross-rates between water's intrinsic or natural value (varying locally) and water charges often mistaken as market prices but more like transfer prices (use value minus an unrequited transfer of wealth that depends on the local natural price).