Buridan's Ass and a Menu of Options.

The goal of the paper is to study how a menu of options affects decisions of a rational agent facing uncertainty over future payoff streams. Using the real options approach, we demonstrate that multiple options not only increase the barrier which the underlying stochastic variable has to reach in order investment became optimal, but cause the investor to be inactive even when the cost of investment is vanishing. As a technical contribution, the paper suggests a robust method of solution of a two-point optimal stopping problem.Real options, procrastination, choice between two projects

Search, layoffs and reservation wages when job offers follow a stochastic process

Despite the fact that the empirical data indicate the presence of non- stationarity in wage offer distributions, the majority of job-search models are stationary. We model logs of wage offers as a Markov process with i.i.d. increments and solve two typical job-search models for reservation wages, value functions and expected individual duration of unemployment. All solutions are in the closed form and admit interpretation in terms of expected present values of certain streams of payoffs.reservation wage, supremum process, Wiener-Hopf factorization

Discounting when income is stochastic and climate change policies

We introduce stochastic income into the standard exponential discounting model and study dependence of effective discount rates on the type of the underlying stochastic process and agent's current income level. If the income follows a process with i.i.d. increments effective discounting is exponential. If the income follows a mean reverting process, the shape of discount rate curves depends on the margin between the agent's current income and the long-run average. The model is used to study how the willingness to pay for investments in abatement technologies depends on the current wealth of a country.time preference, discounted utility anomalies, uncertainty, willingness to pay

Optimal stopping in Levy models, for non-monotone discontinuous payoffs

We give short proofs of general theorems about optimal entry and exit problems in Levy models, when payoff streams may have discontinuities and be non-monotone. As applications, we consider exit and entry problems in the theory of real options, and an entry problem with an embedded option to exit.optimal stopping, Levy processes, non-monotone discontinuous payoffs

Practical guide to real options in discrete time II

This paper is an extended version of the paper 'Practical Guide to Real Options in Discrete Time' (http://econwpa.wustl.edu:80/eps/fin/papers/0405/0405016.pdf), where a general, computationally simple approach to real options in discrete time was suggested. We explicitly formulate conditions of the general theorems for basic types of real options, and explain our method in detail for the case of transition density given by exponential functions on each half-axis. To demonstrate that the discrete time approach can be more analytically tractable than the continuous time one, we consider timing of investment with lags, and a model of gradual capital expansion. We obtain simple formulas for the expected values of capital stock in every time period; in continuous time models, a much more sophisticated technique is needed.Real options, embedded options, expected present value operators

General option exercise rules, with applications to embedded options and monopolistic expansion

This paper provides a general framework for pricing of real options in continuous time for wide classes of payoff streams that are functions of Levy processes. As applications, we calculate the option values of multi-stage investment/disinvestment problems (sequences of embedded options, which we call Russian dolls), and study two models of expansion of a monopoly. In the first model, each time when the stochastic demand reaches the boundary of the inaction region or crosses it, the monopoly increases capital stock but uses the same production technology. We assume that above a certain level, the stochastic demand factor increases slower than in the standard geometric Levy models, and demonstrate that then the investment threshold is lower than in the standard models. Moreover, in the intermediate range between the regimes of the fast and slower growth, the monopoly may find it optimal to simultaneously increase the capital stock and decrease the output price. The second model is driven by two factors: one factor follows a process with upward jumps and describes the dynamics of the frontier technology, the other - demand uncertainty. The impact of these factors on new technology adoption is analyzed. It is shown that depending on the situation and type of uncertainty, the diffusion uncertainty and jump uncertainty can produce opposite effects.embedded options, technology adoption, capital expansion

Inside and Outside Money, with an Application to the Russian Virtual Economy

We analyze the endogenous appearance of money substitutes, their interaction with outside money, and resulting distortions in the price system of an economy with large monopolies and wide-spread informal networks. The economy consists of productive, individually optimizing agents and less productive colluding agents who issue universally acceptable money substitutes. We distinguish equilibria by types of exchange both between agents of one type and between those of different types and show that for small trading frictions, only three types of equilibria can be sustained. A novelty of the analysis is that the agents issuing money substitutes survive by their collusion.money substitutes; search; collusion; trading frictions.