The theoretical foundation for real options goes back to the mid 1980s and the development of a model that forms the basis for many current applications of real option theory. Over the last decade the theory has rapidly expanded and become enriched thanks to increasing research activity. Modern real option theory may be used for the valuation of entire companies as well as for particular investment projects in the presence of uncertainty. As such, the theory of real options can serve as a tool for more practically oriented decision making, providing management with strategies maximizing its capital market value. This book is devoted to examining a new framework for classifying real options from a management and a valuation perspective, giving the advantages and disadvantages of the real option approach. Impulse control theory and the theory of optimal stopping combined with methods of mathematical finance are used to construct arbitrarily complex real option models which can be solved numerically and which yield optimal capital market strategies and values. Various examples are given to demonstrate the potential of this framework. This work will benefit the financial community, companies, as well as academics in mathematical finance by providing an important extension of real option research from both a theoretical and practical point of view.

This text unfolds and examines a new framework for classifying real options from a management as well as a valuation perspective, giving the advantages and disadvantages of the real option approach. Impulse control theory and the theory of optimal stopping combined with methods of mathematical finance are used to construct arbitrarily complex real option models which can be solved numerically and yield optimal capital market strategies and values. Various examples are given, demonstrating the potential of the proposed framework.

This book addresses issues associated with the interface of computing, optimisation, econometrics and financial modeling, emphasizing computational optimisation methods and techniques. The first part addresses optimisation problems and decision modeling, plus applications of supply chain and worst-case modeling and advances in methodological aspects of optimisation techniques. The second part covers optimisation heuristics, filtering, signal extraction and time series models. The final part discusses optimisation in portfolio selection and real option modeling.

Given that engineering flexibility can potentially provide a competitive advantage, the question then becomes: Precisely how valuable is this flexibility? However, traditional methods often fail to accurately capture the economic value of investments in an environment of widespread uncertainty and rapid change. The real options method represents th

Examines the ways in which real options theory can contribute to strategic management. This volume offers conceptual pieces that trace out pathways for the theory to move forward and presents research on the implications of real options for strategic investment, organization, and firm performance.

This compilation integrates various new contributions to the growing real options literature. Recent developments in the valuation of capital investment opportunities seen as real options (e.g. to defer, expand, abandon, or switch) have provided the tools and unlocked the possibilities to revolutionize the field of capital budgeting. The resulting insights, strategies, and techniques enable quantifying the thus far elusive elements of managerial operating flexibility and strategic interactions. These are vital to successfully capitalize on favorable future investment opportunities or limit losses from adverse market developments. This book presents various models and operating strategies, and a variety of applications ranging from acquisitions and divestitures, to natural resource development and pollution compliance. It is intended for both the academic and the professional market. The book's contributions are divided into five parts, covering sections on real options and alternative valuation paradigms for capital investment analysis; on the analysis of general exchange or switching options, and interdependencies among multiple such options; on strategic acquisitions, infrastructure, and foreign investment options; on mean reversion/ alternative formulations in natural resource investments, shipping, and start-up ventures; and on other applications in pollution compliance, land development, flexible manufacturing, and financial default options. Both academic and practitioner interest in these developments is unusually high. The book can serve as supplementary material for the academic market, e.g., in advanced finance courses in option pricing or capital budgeting, in doctoral seminars, and as a library resource. It may also be of interest to the professional market (e.g. corporate planners and finance executives in the oil, pharmaceutical, auto and a variety of other industries), academics from related areas (e.g. decision analysts or economists), as well as to international readers (academics, doctoral students, and professionals).

This paper examines how capital controls affect FDI decisions and how the impact of these restrictive measures varies with different levels of country risk. We construct a model of firms' FDI decisions, broadly in Dunning's "eclectic theory" framework, using "real options" to emphasize economic uncertainty and country risk. Numerical results of the model take the form of "quality statistics" that uncover the underlying dynamics hidden in the aggregate data that is responsible for the low performance of recent empirical studies. We find that increasing levels of capital controls reduce the life-span of FDI investments at each level of country risk and foreign investors' willingness towards risk sharing increases. We reveal a significant interaction between capital control and country risk, resulting in a nonlinear relationship between these and the volatility and volume statistics. We estimate a standard cross-sectional model that provides strong support for our theoretical findings.

A new paradigm for balancing flexibility and commitment in management strategy through the amalgamation of real options and game theory. Corporate managers who face both strategic uncertainty and market uncertainty confront a classic trade-off between commitment and flexibility. They can stake a claim by making a large capital investment today, influencing their rivals' behavior, or they can take a “wait and see” approach to avoid adverse market consequences tomorrow. In Competitive Strategy, Benoît Chevalier-Roignant and Lenos Trigeorgis describe an emerging paradigm that can quantify and balance commitment and flexibility, “option games,” by which the decision-making approaches of real options and game theory can be combined. The authors first discuss prerequisite concepts and tools from basic game theory, industrial organization, and real options analysis, and then present the new approach in discrete time and later in continuous time. Their presentation of continuous-time option games is the first systematic coverage of the topic and fills a significant gap in the existing literature. Competitive Strategy provides a rigorous yet pragmatic and intuitive approach to strategy formulation. It synthesizes research in the areas of strategy, economics, and finance in a way that is accessible to readers not necessarily expert in the various fields involved.