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Finite project life and uncertainty effects on investment

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  • Gryglewicz, Sebastian
  • Huisman, Kuno J.M.
  • Kort, Peter M.

Abstract

This paper revisits the important result of the real options approach to investment under uncertainty, which states that increased uncertainty raises the value of waiting and thus decelerates investment. Typically in this literature projects are assumed to be perpetual. However, in today's economy firms face a fast-changing technology environment, implying that investment projects are usually considered to have a finite life. The present paper studies investment projects with finite project life, and we find that, in contrast with the existing theory, investments may be accelerated by increased uncertainty. It is shown that this particularly happens at low levels of uncertainty and when project life is short.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.

Volume (Year): 32 (2008)
Issue (Month): 7 (July)
Pages: 2191-2213

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Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:32:y:2008:i:7:p:2191-2213

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Cited by:
  1. Shibata, Takashi, 2009. "Investment timing, asymmetric information, and audit structure: A real options framework," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 903-921, April.
  2. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2010. "Dynamic investment and capital structure under manager-shareholder conflict," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 158-178, February.
  3. Thijssen, Jacco J.J., 2011. "Incomplete markets, ambiguity, and irreversible investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 909-921, June.
  4. Ni, Shawn & Ratti, Ronald A., 2009. "Heterogeneous parameter uncertainty and the timing of investment during crisis," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 3(41), pages 1-22.
  5. Djembissi, Bertrand, 2011. "Excessive risk taking and the maturity structure of debt," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1800-1816, October.
  6. Markus Diller, 2012. "Tax-Optimal Step-Up and Imperfect Loss Offset," BuR - Business Research, German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 5(1), pages 8-23, May.
  7. Elmar Lukas & Andreas Welling, 2012. "On the Investment-Uncertainty Relationship: A Game Theoretic Real Option Approach," FEMM Working Papers 120030, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.

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