The paper examines a firm's cost of expropriation risk in a framework that links it to the government's incentive to expropriate. The author develops a pricing model for the firm's cost of expropriation risk that includes the positions of both government and firm. The government's decision to expropriate is modeled as an American-style call option. The cost of expropriation risk is modeled as the value of an insurance policy that pays off all losses resulting from expropriation. The firm's cost of expropriation risk is determined by the government acting to optimize the value of its option to expropriate. The author identifies the parameters that link the government's option to expropriate to the firm's cost of expropriation risk, and shows how the model can be used in capital budgeting decisions and the ongoing management of expropriation risk. Copyright 2003 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
