In standard models of experimentation, the costs of project development consist of (a) the direct cost of running trials as well as (b) the implicit opportunity cost of leaving alternative projects idle. Another natural type of experimentation cost, the cost of holding on to the option of...

This paper studies the spillover effects of rising biofuel production on participation in the Conservation Reserve Program. Landowner participation decisions are modeled using a real options framework. We develop a land use decision model that captures biofuel-driven structural changes in market...

This paper studies the problem of an agent who wants to prevent the state from exceeding a critical threshold. Even though the agent is presumed to know the model, the optimal policy is computed by solving a conventional robust control problem. That is, robustness is induced here by objectives...

This paper formulates a continuous-time information transmission model in which an altruistic sender privately observes a stochastic state variable, and incurs a communication cost when she broadcasts a message. We characterize the sender's optimal announcement strategy using an ordinary...

This paper investigates whether a regime switching model of stochastic lumber prices is better for the analysis of optimal harvesting problems in forestry than a more traditional single regime model. Prices of lumber derivatives are used to calibrate a regime switching model, with each of two...

In this paper, we prove a maximum principle for general stochastic differential Stackelberg games, and apply the theory to continuous time newsvendor problems. In the newsvendor problem, a manufacturer sells goods to a retailer, and the objective of both parties is to maximize expected profits...

To value non-transferable non-hedgeable (NTNH) contingent claims and price executive stock options (ESOs), we use a replication argument to translate portfolios with NTNH derivatives into portfolios of primary assets (only) with stochastic portfolio constraints. By identifying stochastic...

The optimal investment policy for a standard multi-period mean–variance model is not time-consistent because the variance operator is not separable in the sense of the dynamic programming principle. With a nested conditional expectation mapping, we develop an investment model with time...

This paper proposes downside risk measure models in portfolio selection that captures uncertainties both in distribution and in parameters. The worst-case distribution with given information on the mean value and the covariance matrix is used, together with ellipsoidal and polytopic uncertainty...

In this article, we study the effects on derivative pricing arising from price impacts by large traders. When a large trader issues a derivative and (partially) hedges his risk by trading in the underlying, he influences both his hedge portfolio and the derivative's payoff. In a Black–Scholes...