Real option theory has remained a fringe field; practitioners believe it is not practically applicable in complex real world environments. We show that this view is mistaken. We apply real option theory to a highly complex energy problem with unhedgeable risk, time varying volatilities and...

We investigate the relationship between the extent of vertical flexibility and the underlying financial choices of a firm. By vertical flexibility we mean the opportunity to outsource a necessary input and to reverse the choice as input market conditions dictate. A firm simultaneously selects...

We aim at obtaining a simple quantitative rule for the joint determining of optimal corporate investment and financing policies in an intertemporal setting. A novel general continuous-time framework, inspired by the optimal portfolio design literature, is first built. We derive the optimal...

This paper develops a general continuous-time framework for defining optimal corporate pension policy. Interactions between the firm's optimal investment and financing policies and the defined benefit pension plan optimal portfolio strategy are studied. We prove that the three decision rules are...

Traditional theories of capital structure imply a consistent relationship between firm profitability and firm leverage. Empirical data, however, suggest that the relationship is not monotonic. In the cross-section of firms, non-profitable firms become significantly more leveraged as losses...

This paper develops a general continuous-time framework for defining the optimal corporate pension policy for defined benefit (DB) plans in the presence of PBGC insurance. Interactions between the firm's optimal investment and financing policies and the optimal portfolio strategy for DB plans...

A firm using a discount rate defined at the corporate scale as a Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) may have to value projects subject to a different tax rate from the one used to calculate its discount rate. Moreover, to determine the economic value of a project, the WACC and Arditti-Levy...

A multinational firm operating under various tax regimes can minimize the total after-tax cost of its debt by allocating it optimally between its projects. To value a marginal project in this context, we build a multi-period model for the selection of projects, assuming that the firm maintains a...

Most of the operations management literature assumes that the firm can always finance production decisions at an optimal level or borrow at a constant interest rate; however, operational decisions are constrained by limited capital and often critically depend on external financing. This paper...

While firm growth critically depends on financing ability and access to external capital, the operations management literature seldom considers the effects of financial constraints on the firms' operational decisions. Another critical assumption in traditional operations models is that corporate...