We examine the impact on an R&D valuation and its investment timing of abrupt events, options facing paradise (blockbusters) and purgatory (catastrophes). We show that the presence of a special case of Lévy jumps can model positive and negative effects in the investment opportunity even when...

Pushing models to extremes can expose output biases that stem from underlying assumptions. In the case of industry standard option valuation models, long term, high volatility securities provide a stress test vehicle. For instance, in evaluating a stock with 60% volatility, industry standard...

R&D is often a highly uncertain venture where experiments achieve successful outcomes on an extraordinarily rare basis. Just one successful product could change the future of a company; the discovery stage can often be an invaluable or disastrous experience. We develop a real R&D option model...

In this paper a joint capital asset pricing model and option pricing model is considered and applied to the derivation of an equity's value and its systematic risk. We first analyze the propreties of the two models and present some newly found properties of the option pricing model. We then...

This article provides an in-depth analysis of pricing and structuring of contingent convertibles (CoCos). These debt instruments convert into the equity of the issuing bank or suffer a write-down of the face value upon the appearance of a trigger event. This trigger mechanism provides an...

We construct a two-factor pricing model for contingent convertible bonds having a conversion to equity loss absorption mechanism, triggered by the event of the issuer’s Tier 1 ratio falling below a pre-determined level. The two stochastic factors are the issuer’s equity price and Tier 1...

Financial statements and an accompanying NPV calculation are embedded into a binomial tree. This generalization of traditional static NPV analysis allows the financial statements to both evolve through time and, at any given time, to vary with states of the world (similar to a Monte Carlo...

Governments and corporations frequently auction assets with embedded real options using both cash and contingent bids. I characterize equilibrium bidding and option exercise strategies, and find that the moral hazard associated with uncontractible investment timing inefficiently and...

This paper addresses the classical real options problem taking debt renegotiation into account. A critical feature is that equityholders can freely initiate debt renegotiation at most once after debt issuance. We provide explicit solutions of the pricing and timing of the option to start a...

The value premium is the empirical observation that low market/book “value” stocks have higher returns than high market/book “growth” stocks. In this paper, we investigate and present evidence for an “equity as a call option hypothesis” for the value premium. Volatility decreases the...