IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt15t887m9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Laboratory Investigation of Deferral Options

Author

Listed:
  • Oprea, Ryan
  • Friedman, Daniel
  • Anderson, Steven T

Abstract

An irreversible investment opportunity has value V governed by Brownian motion with upward drift and random expiration. Human subjects choose in continuous time when to invest. If she invests before expiration, the subject receives V−C : the final value V less a given avoidable cost C . The optimal policy is to invest when V first crosses a threshold V ∗ = (1 + w∗ )C , where the option premium w∗ is a specific function of the Brownian parameters representing drift, volatility and discount (or expiration hazard) rate. We ran 80 periods each for 69 subjects. Subjects in the Low w∗ treatment on average invested at values quite close to optimum. Sub jects in the two Medium treatments and the High w∗ invested at values below optimum, but with the predicted ordering, and values approached the optimum by the last block of 20 periods. Behavior was most heterogeneous in the High treatment. Subjects underrespond to differences in both the volatility and expiration hazard parameters. A directional learning model suggests that sub jects react reliably to ex-post losses due to early investment, and react much more heterogeneously (and on average more strongly) to missed investment opportunities. Simulations show that this learning process converges on a nearly optimal steady state.

Suggested Citation

  • Oprea, Ryan & Friedman, Daniel & Anderson, Steven T, 2007. "A Laboratory Investigation of Deferral Options," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt15t887m9, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt15t887m9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/15t887m9.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    2. Hirshleifer,Jack & Glazer,Amihai & Hirshleifer,David, 2005. "Price Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521523424, September.
    3. Arthur J. Robson, 2002. "Evolution and Human Nature," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 89-106, Spring.
    4. Robert McDonald & Daniel Siegel, 1986. "The Value of Waiting to Invest," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 707-727.
    5. James Cox & Ronald Oaxaca, 2000. "Good News and Bad News: Search from Unknown Wage Offer Distributions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(3), pages 197-225, March.
    6. Timothy Cason & Daniel Friedman, 1999. "Learning in a Laboratory Market with Random Supply and Demand," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(1), pages 77-98, August.
    7. Harrison, Glenn W, 1989. "Theory and Misbehavior of First-Price Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 749-762, September.
    8. Schotter, Andrew & Braunstein, Yale M, 1981. "Economic Search: An Experimental Study," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 19(1), pages 1-25, January.
    9. Henry, Claude, 1974. "Investment Decisions Under Uncertainty: The "Irreversibility Effect."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 1006-1012, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philipp Strack & Paul Viefers, 2021. "Too Proud to Stop: Regret in Dynamic Decisions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 165-199.
    2. Anderson, Steven T & Friedman, Daniel & Oprea, Ryan, 2008. "Preemption Games: Theory and Experiment," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0pr4g8h1, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    3. Paul Viefers, 2012. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?: A Laboratory Analysis of Investment Opportunities under Ambiguity," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1228, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Steven T. Anderson & Daniel Friedman & Ryan Oprea, 2010. "Preemption Games: Theory and Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1778-1803, September.
    5. Gürtler, Marc & Sieg, Gernot, 2006. "Crunch time: The optimal policy to avoid the "Announcement Effect" when terminating a subsidy," Working Papers FW24V2, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Finance.
    6. Décamps, Jean-Paul & Mariotti, Thomas & Villeneuve, Stéphane, 2000. "Investment Timing under Incomplete Information," IDEI Working Papers 115, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Apr 2004.
    7. Jean-Paul Décamps & Thomas Mariotti & Stéphane Villeneuve, 2006. "Irreversible investment in alternative projects," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(2), pages 425-448, June.
    8. Gürtler Marc & Sieg Gernot, 2010. "Crunch Time: A Policy to Avoid the ‘Announcement Effect’ when Terminating a Subsidy," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 25-36, February.
    9. Jouvet, Pierre-André & Le Cadre, Elodie & Orset, Caroline, 2012. "Irreversible investment, uncertainty, and ambiguity: The case of bioenergy sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 45-53.
    10. Patrick Bolton & Antoine Faure-Grimaud, 2009. "Thinking Ahead: The Decision Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1205-1238.
    11. Balmann, Alfons & Musshoff, Oliver, 2002. "Is The "Standard Real Options Approach" Appropriate For Investment Decisions In Hog Production?," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19897, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Jain, Shashi & Roelofs, Ferry & Oosterlee, Cornelis W., 2013. "Valuing modular nuclear power plants in finite time decision horizon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 625-636.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1046 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Balmann, Alfons & Kataria, Karin & Musshoff, Oliver, 2013. "Investment reluctance in supply chains: An agent-based real options approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2A), pages 1-10.
    15. Luis H. R. Alvarez & Erkki Koskela, 2006. "Irreversible Investment under Interest Rate Variability: Some Generalizations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(2), pages 623-644, March.
    16. El-Shazly Alaa, 2004. "Investment Under Uncertainty in Egypt: A Real-Options Approach," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 51-60, August.
    17. Kitzing, Lena & Juul, Nina & Drud, Michael & Boomsma, Trine Krogh, 2017. "A real options approach to analyse wind energy investments under different support schemes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 83-96.
    18. Krüger, Niclas A. & Svensson, Mikael, 2009. "The impact of real options on willingness to pay for mortality risk reductions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 563-569, May.
    19. Balmann, Alfons & Musshoff, Oliver, 2002. "Real Options and Competition: The Impact of Depreciation and Reinvestment," 2002 International Congress, August 28-31, 2002, Zaragoza, Spain 24934, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Karine Fiore, 2004. "Irréversibilité Mixte et Modularité : une application à l’investissement électronucléaire," CAE Working Papers 17, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM.
    21. Jérôme Bourdieu & Benoît Coeuré & Béatrice Sédillot, 1997. "Investissement, incertitude et irréversibilité. Quelques développements récents de la théorie de l'investissement," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(1), pages 23-53.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt15t887m9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.