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 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.

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.