In this paper we offer an alternative framework for examining why risk matters in the decisions of economic agents, and how the agent’s risk attitude affects his decisions. This “Threshold Theory” framework is based on a real options approach and the observation that in many situations an...

We develop a structural model to investigate the effects of asymmetric beliefs and agency conflicts on dynamic principal-agent relationships. Our model differs from previous models by incorporating three key features in a unified framework: (i) asymmetric beliefs and risk attitudes, (ii) actions...

Multi-staged R&D projects are copy-book cases of compound real options. Traditional compound option models assume a constant volatility over the lifetime of the project. Building on the n-fold compound option model of Cassimon et al. (2004), we extend this model to allow for phase-specific...

We apply utility indifference pricing to solve a contingent claim problem, valuing a connected pair of gas fields where the underlying process is not standard Geometric Brownian motion and the assumption of complete markets is not fulfilled. First, empirical data are often characterized by...

We study business uncertainty in high- versus low-volatility environments by surveying over 31,000 managers across 41 countries. We elicit subjective probability distributions for future own-firm sales and measure firm-level uncertainty with their mean absolute deviations. Analogously, we...

The problem of irreversible investment with idiosyncratic risk is studied by interpreting market incompleteness as a source of Knightian uncertainty over the appropriate discount factor. Maxmin utility over multiple priors is used to solve the irreversible investment problem. The notion of...

This paper examines how industry-specific uncertainty affects firms' investments for varying degrees of asset irreversibility (i.e. the wedge between purchase price and liquidation value of an asset). To identify more or less irreversible capital goods, we exploit unique survey data on German...

The levels of uncertainty surrounding construction projects are particularly high and construction managers should be aware that adequately managing the effects of the different types of uncertainty may lead to an increase in the overall performance of construction companies. The model proposed...

Research contributions providing insights at the intersection of real options analysis and industrial organization have become numerous in the recent decade. In the present paper, we provide an overview aimed at categorizing and relating these research streams. We highlight managerial insights...

We analyze the impact of progressive taxation on irreversible investment under uncertainty. We show that if tax exemption is lower than sunk cost, higher tax rate will decelerate optimal investment by increasing the optimal investment threshold, while if tax exemption exceeds sunk cost, three...