As public utilities and government owners face increased budget constraints and greater expectations, alternative project delivery methods will increasingly be used to fast track projects, reduce costs, promote innovation and ensure proper performance for various types of facilities and infrastructure systems. The goals of public utility owners along with economic and financial considerations suggest why some project delivery methods have been selected over other project delivery methods. In response, the first phase of this doctoral research presents a model for selecting the optimum project delivery method that considers economic sustainability as well as other goals of multiple project stakeholders. This first phase of research contributes to the existing body of knowledge and benefits industry practitioners by identifying best practices that improve the project delivery selection process while enhancing risk mitigation efforts. The procurement selection process uses multiple-criteria decision-making and financial risk analysis to select the most economically sustainable delivery method given each project’s unique characteristics. A present value analysis establishes a range of values that considers variables that will potentially impact lifecycle costs. The selection of the procurement process is based on best value where financial risks to the concerned government and other project stakeholders are mitigated through service fee agreements and project finance structures, which are both dynamic and provide for real options. The second phase of this research presents an innovative approach for the valuation of the types of real options on project finance structures which are specifically procured through a design-build-finance-operate project delivery method (also known as a public-private partnership) (P3). This second phase of research includes an investigation into systems engineering and System Dynamics (SD) simulation modeling. An SD model is used for the valuation of real options attached to a P3 project’s finance structure. The valuation of these real options is based on the simulation results related to infrastructure performance. The significance of this research is made greater considering that P3s are increasingly being pursued because of their ability to alleviate pressure on government budgets, promote innovation and implement new technologies. These types of contracts, however, tend to be long-term and often need to account for future yet-to-be-seen variables that potentially impact the feasibility of this procurement method. This is especially true when the P3 project exists within a portfolio of competing assets across infrastructure systems. This second phase of research presents An SD model that is used to analyze the complexity of an infrastructure asset procured through a P3 within such a portfolio. An illustrative case demonstrates how discrete and continuous events potentially impact the successful procurement of infrastructure within a portfolio of competing assets comprising a regional transportation system. This second phase of research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by demonstrating how An SD model can simulate the real-world causal relationships that impact the procurement of infrastructure through P3s. The SD model is used for the valuation of real options to promote public initiatives, encourage private participation and enhance economic sustainability of P3 as a viable procurement strategy. The third and final phase of this doctoral research considers the increasing complexity of infrastructure procurement as individual assets are increasingly viewed as being part of a larger network of interdependent systems. In response, the objective of this final phase is to present a methodology to simulate the behavior of assets that span across different types of infrastructure systems. This investigation presents a method for analyzing investments that traverses across different infrastructure systems with individual assets procured through a variety of project delivery methods. This third investigation also utilizes An SD simulation model. In the final phase of this doctoral research, however, the SD model captures the causal relationships between competing assets where simulation results elucidate the compounding effects of multiple investments that traverse across two or more infrastructure systems. By doing so, this research contributes to the existing body of knowledge and demonstrates how SD models are effectively used to value real options that are termed exotic. These exotic types of real options occur within a portfolio of competing infrastructure assets where the valuation of each real option must consider the compounding effects of competing alternatives as well as the value of the underlying asset. This research presents a methodology for the valuation of multiple types of exotic options in real investments that traverse across various types of infrastructure systems. This method can also be applied to the valuation of other types of exotic options in various industries including research and development pursuits.

The thesis includes two essays on asset pricing. In the first essay, "Asset Pricing in a Monetary Economy with Heterogeneous Beliefs", we shed new light on the role of monetary policy in asset pricing by focusing on the case where investors have heterogeneous expectations about future monetary policy. Under heterogeneity in beliefs, investors place bets against each other on the evolution of money supply, and as a result, the sharing of wealth in the economy evolves stochastically over time, making money non-neutral. Employing a continuous-time, general equilibrium model, we establish these fluctuations to be rich in implications, in that they majorly affect the equilibrium prices of all assets, as well as inflation. In particular, we find that the stock market volatility may be significantly increased by the heterogeneity in beliefs, a conclusion supported by our empirical analysis. The second essay is titled with " Asset Pricing and Welfare Analysis with Bounded Rational Investors". Motivated by the fact that investors have limited ability and insufficient knowledge to process information, I model investors' bounded-rational behavior in processing information and study its implications on asset pricing. Bounded rational investors perceive "correlated" information (which consists of news that is correlated with fundamentals, but provides no information on them) as "fundamental" information. This generates "bounded rational risk". Asset prices and volatilities of asset returns are derived. Specially, the equity premium and the stock volatility are raised under some conditions. I also analyze the welfare impact of bounded rationality.

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Thesis (MComm (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / For the last 40 years, academics advocated the use of the traditional Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) techniques but these suggestions were ignored by practitioners for a long time. The Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Present Value Payback Period (PVPP) are now some of the more widely used traditional DCF-based techniques, especially among large firms. However, academics are now criticising these techniques as they are based on rigid assumptions that ignore the management of flexibility in projects. The Real Option Valuation (ROV) is suggested as an alternative technique because it implicitly incorporates this flexibility in project valuation. With ROV, opportunities in projects are treated as real options and are therefore valued using financial option principles. Real options give the firm the opportunity to act on an investment project (invest, abandon, rescale) at a later date, when more information is available. As with the traditional DCF-based techniques in the past, few firms seem to have adopted ROV despite academics’ recommendations. This study is thus aimed at determining through a survey, whether the largest firms in South Africa, specifically those included in the JSE/FTSE Top 40 index, are using ROV. Based on the results of the survey, it is concluded that firms generally do not use ROV as only nine percent of the respondents were found to be using it. This is largely attributed to managers being unaware of the technique, and to some extent, to the technique’s complexity. On the other hand, managers were generally found to recognise the flexibility despite not using ROV, although it was not confirmed whether they quantify this flexibility.

Submitted by Cassio Enrico de Araujo e Campos (cassioenrico@hotmail.com) on 2017-09-11T19:12:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertaçãoCassioVersãoFinal.pdf: 2894148 bytes, checksum: 1a301822784e0d12301f8edb4915d154 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Joana Martorini (joana.martorini@fgv.br) on 2017-09-11T19:18:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertaçãoCassioVersãoFinal.pdf: 2894148 bytes, checksum: 1a301822784e0d12301f8edb4915d154 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-12T15:11:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertaçãoCassioVersãoFinal.pdf: 2894148 bytes, checksum: 1a301822784e0d12301f8edb4915d154 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-08 / The recent Brazilian economic recession, encouraged federal government to promote programs to stimulate logistics infrastructure projects. However, political and economic uncertain scenario have settled down the government in an unfavorable position in searching for long-term investments in the country. This outlook obliged government's search for alternative ways to increase collaterals, thus, leveraging the attractiveness of projects. This paper aims to propose a decision model, based on real options, for a road concession exposed to a railroad installation risk, in a confluent path. Due to freight cost differences between road and railways, forecasted highway concession's cash flows are clearly endangered. Real Options Theory seems to be capable, not only to mitigate the effects of the railroad impact on concession’s cash flow, but also, to manage adding value for the project. Leveraging NPV above the original deterministic one. / A recessão econômica que atingiu o Brasil nos últimos anos, incentivou o governo federal a promover novos programas de incentivo à infraestrutura logística, porém os cenários de incerteza política e econômica, deixaram o governo em situação desfavorável na busca por novos investimentos de longo prazo no país. Este cenário suscitou a busca governamental por alternativas que pudessem incrementar garantias e aumentar a atratividade dos projetos. O objetivo deste trabalho é propor um modelo para tomada de decisão baseado em opções reais para uma concessionária rodoviária exposta ao risco, em alguns anos, da instalação de uma ferrovia em trajeto confluente. Devido as diferenças entre o custo dos fretes rodoviários e ferroviários, há risco iminente aos fluxos de caixa futuros previstos no plano de negócios original da concessionária de rodovias. O que em um cenário econômico adverso, não atrai a atenção dos investidores. A Teoria de Opções Reais foi capaz, não só de mitigar os efeitos trazidos pela presença da ferrovia aos fluxos de caixa, bem como, conseguiu agregar valor ao projeto, gerando um VPL acima do valor determinístico inicial do projeto.