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introduced the main categories of real options: expansion options, abandonment options, timing
options, and options providing flexibility in production.
Good managers take account of real options when they value a project. One convenient way to
summarize real options and their cash-flow consequences is to create a decision tree. You identify
the things that could happen to the project and the main counteractions that you might take. Then,
working back from the future to the present, you can consider which action you should take in
each case.
Decision trees can help to identify the possible impact of real options on project cash flows, but
we largely skirted the issue of how to value real options. We return to this topic in Chapter 22, after
we have covered option-valuation methods in the previous two chapters.
For a very readable discussion of the problem of overconfidence and other behavioral traits in finan-
cial decision-making, see:
J. S. Hammond, R. L. Keeney, and H. Raiffa, “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making,” Harvard Busi-
ness Review 84 (January 2006), pp. 118–126.
Three not-too-technical references on real options are listed below. Additional references follow
Chapter 22.
A. Dixit and R. Pindyck, “The Options Approach to Capital Investment,” Harvard Business Review 73
(May–June 1995), pp. 105–115.
W. C. Kester, “Today’s Options for Tomorrow’s Growth,” Harvard Business Review 62 (March–April
1984), pp. 153–160.
A. Triantis and A. Borison, “Real Options: State of the Practice,” Journal of Applied Corporate
Finance 14 (Summer 2001), pp. 8–24.
● ● ● ● ●FURTHER
READINGSelect problems are available in McGraw-Hill’s Connect.
Please see the preface for more information.BASIC
- Capital budgeting process True or false?
a. The approval of a capital budget allows managers to go ahead with any project included in
the budget.
b. Capital budgets and project authorizations are mostly developed “bottom up.” Strategic
planning is a “top-down” process.
c. Project sponsors are likely to be overoptimistic.
- Capital budgeting process Explain how each of the following actions or problems can
distort or disrupt the capital budgeting process.
a. Overoptimism by project sponsors.
b. Inconsistent forecasts of industry and macroeconomic variables.
c. Capital budgeting organized solely as a bottom-up process.
- Terminology Define and briefly explain each of the following terms or procedures:
a. Sensitivity analysis
b. Scenario analysis
c. Break-even analysis
d. Monte Carlo simulation
● ● ● ● ●PROBLEM
SETS