Investment and the Dynamic Cost of Income Uncertainty: the Case of Diminishing Expectations in Agriculture

This paper studies optimal investment and the dynamic cost of income uncertainty, applying a stochastic programming approach. The motivation is given by a case study in Finnish agriculture. Investment decision is modelled as a Markov decision process, extended to account for risk. A numerical framework for studying the dynamic uncertainty cost is presented, modifying the classical expected value of perfect information to a dynamic setting. The uncertainty cost depends on the volatility of income; e.g. with stationary income, the dynamic uncertainty cost corresponds to a dynamic option value of postponing investment. The numerical investment model also yields the optimal investment behavior of a representative farm. The model can be applied e.g. in planning investment subsidies for maintaining target investments. In the case study, the investment decision is sensitive to risk.