At the heart of any decision problem is some degree of "flexibility" in how to act. Most often, we aim to extract greatest possible value from this inherent flexibility. The three essays compiled here are aligned with this same general aim, but we have an important secondary concern: to...

The classic contingent-claims pricing model views the borrower’s right to default ona mortgage as a put option. By defaulting on a mortgage the borrower effectivelysells the property to the lender with the current value of the mortgage. The primarygoal of this dissertation is to develop a...

As wind power penetration grows, the amount of reserve needed on the system also grows, due to the increases in the uncertainty of wind power, which grows larger as forecast horizon increases. By scheduling the system more often the amount of extra reserve to be carried to cater for wind...

This thesis addresses the explicit representation of demand-side resources as participants in the day-ahead electricity markets and assesses their impacts on schedul-ing and prices. These resources offer to reduce their loads and compete side-by-side with the supply-side resources in the hourly...

Mergers and acquisitions within the chemical industry is a common practice to increase market presence and customer base. Common justifications for M&A include synergy, business growth and competitive advantages, and management reasoning. Synergies are benefits a combined firm is able to receive...

Primäres Ziel dieser Arbeit war die Entwicklung neuer heuristischer Lösungsverfahren für die logistische Tourenplanung bei restringierendem Anhängereinsatz (engl. Truck and Trailer Routing Problem). Kennzeichnend für dieses kombinatorische Optimierungsproblem ist, dass Fahrzeuge einen...

The profitability of power plant investments depends strongly on uncertain fuel and carbon prices. In this doctoral thesis, we combine fundamental electricity market models with stochastic dynamic programming to evaluate power plant investments under uncertainty. The application of...

One critical factor in open pit mining projects is the estimation of the recoverable reserves. The reason for this is that at the valuation stage there is a lack of information about future metal prices and production costs. Consequently, the estimation of the recoverable reserves needs to be...

For the last 40 years, academics advocated the use of the traditional Discounted CashFlow (DCF) techniques but these suggestions were ignored by practitioners for a longtime. The Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Present ValuePayback Period (PVPP) are now some of the...

Many investment decisions of agribusiness firms such as when to invest in an emerging market or whether to expand the capacity of the firm involve irreversible investment and uncertainty about demand, cost or competition. This paper uses an option-value model to examine the factors affecting an...