Equilibria in Continuous Time Preemption Games with Markovian Payoffs

This paper studies timing games in continuous time where payoffs are stochastic and strongly Markovian. The main interest is in characterizing equilibria where players preempt each other along almost every sample path. It is found that the existence of such preemption equilibria depends crucially on whether there is a coordination mechanism that allows for rent equalization or not, and whether the stochastic payoffs admit upward jumps. Through numerical examples it is argued that the possibility of such coordination improves social welfare and that the welfare loss due to preemption decreases in uncertainty.Timing Games, Real Options, Preemption

Valuing Voluntary Disclosure using a Real Options Approach

This paper outlines a real options approach to valuing those announcements which are made by firms outside their legal requirements. From the firm's perspective, information is disclosed only if the manager of the firm is sufficiently certain that the market response to the announcement will have a positive impact on the value of the firm. When debt financing is possible it is found that the manager adopts a more transparent disclosure policy, thus violating the Modigliani-Miller theorem on irrelevance of capital structure on firm value.Voluntary Disclosure, Real Options, Modigliani-Miller Theorem.

Fear of the market or fear of the competitor? Ambiguity in a real options game

Hellmann T, Thijssen JJJ. Fear of the market or fear of the competitor? Ambiguity in a real options game. Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers. Vol 533 Januar 2016. Bielefeld: Center for Mathematical Economics; 2016.In this paper we study a two–player investment game with a first mover advantage in continuous time with stochastic payoffs, driven by a geometric Brownian motion. One of the players is assumed to be ambiguous with max–min preferences over a strongly rectangular set of priors. We develop a strategy and equilibrium concept allowing for ambiguity and show that equilibria can be preemptive (a player invests at a point where investment is Pareto dominated by waiting) or sequential (one player invests as if she were the exogenously appointed leader). Following the standard literature, the worst–case prior for the ambiguous player if she is the second mover is obtained by setting the lowest possible trend in the set of priors. However, if the ambiguous player is the first mover, then the worst–case prior can be given by either the lowest or the highest trend in the set of priors. This novel result shows that “worst–case prior” in a setting with geometric Brownian motion and –ambiguity over the drift does not always equate to “lowest trend”

The Impact of Voluntary Disclosure on a Firm's Investment Policy

In this paper we provide a model which describes how voluntary disclosure impacts on the timing of a firm’s investment decisions. A manager chooses a time to invest in a project and a time to disclose the investment return in order to maximise his monetary payoff. We assume that this payoff is linked to the level of the firm’s stock price. Prior to investing, the profitability of the project and the market reaction to the disclosure of the investment return are uncertain, but the manager receives signals at random points in time which assist in resolving some of this uncertainty. We find that a manager whose objective can only be achieved through voluntarily disclosing the return is motivated to invest at a time that would be sub-optimal for an identical manager with a profit maximising objective

A model for irreversible investment with construction and revenue uncertainty

This paper presents a model of investment in projects that are characterized by uncertainty over both the construction costs and revenues. Both processes are modeled as spectrally negative Lévy jump-diffusions. The optimal stopping problem that determines the value of the project is solved under fairly general assumptions. It is found that the current value of the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) decreases in the frequency of negative shocks to the construction process. This implies that the cost overruns that can be expected if one ignores such shocks are increasing in their frequency. Based on calibrated data, the model is applied to the proposed construction of high-speed rail in the UK and it is found that its economic case cannot currently be made and is unlikely to be met at any time in the next decade. In addition it is found that ignoring construction uncertainty leads to a substantial probability of an erroneous decision being taken

Preemption in a real option game with a first mover advantage and player-specific uncertainty

In this paper a two-player real option game with a first-mover advantage is analyzed, where payoffs are driven by a player-specific stochastic state variable. It is shown that there exists an equilibrium which has qualitatively different properties from those in standard real option games driven by common stochastic shocks. The properties of the equilibrium are four-fold: (i) preemption does not necessarily occur, (ii) if preemption takes place, the rent-equalization property holds, (iii) for almost all sample paths it is clear ex-ante which player invests first, and (iv) it is possible that both players invest simultaneously, even if that is not optimal. It is argued from simulations that real option games with a common one-dimensional shock do not provide a good approximation for games with player-specific uncertainty, even if these are highly correlated.Timing games Preemption Rent equalization

Incomplete markets, ambiguity, and irreversible investment

The problem of irreversible investment with idiosyncratic risk is studied by interpreting market incompleteness as a source of ambiguity over the appropriate no-arbitrage discount factor. The maxmin utility over multiple priors framework is used to model and solve the irreversible investment problem. Multiple priors are modeled using the notion of [kappa][hyphen (true graphic)]ignorance. This set-up is used to analyze finitely lived options. For infinitely lived options the notion of constant [kappa][hyphen (true graphic)]ignorance is introduced. For these sets of density generators the corresponding optimal stopping problem is solved for general (in-)finite horizon optimal stopping problems driven by geometric Brownian motion. It is argued that an increase in the set of priors delays investment, whereas an increase in the degree of market completeness can have a non-monotonic effect on investment.Irreversible investment Idiosyncratic risk Ambiguity

Optimal and strategic timing of mergers and acquisitions motivated by synergies and risk diversification

This paper analyses a real options model of mergers and takeovers between two firms experiencing different, but correlated, uncertainty. It is assumed that mergers do not just lead to efficiency gains, but are also an act of diversification. Due to the latter assumption the region where a merger is optimal is a bounded interval and not a half-space as in most real options models. It is shown that if the roles of the bidder and the target are determined endogenously the option value of the mergers vanishes completely, implying that, in equilibrium, the mergers occur sooner than when these roles are exogenously given. It is also shown that mergers can be optimal even if synergies are negative.