The cost of construction projects depends on their size, complexity, and duration. Construction management applies effective management techniques to the planning, design, and construction of a project from conception to completion for the purpose of controlling time, cost and quality. A real options approach in construction projects, improves strategic thinking by helping planners recognize, design and use flexible alternatives to manage dynamic uncertainty. In order to manage uncertainty using this approach, it is necessary to value the real options. Real option models assume independence of option holder and the impacts of underlying uncertainties on performance and value. The current work proposes and initially tests whether project management reduces the value of real options. The example of resource allocation is used to test this hypothesis. Based on the results, it is concluded that project management reduces the value of real options by reducing variance of the exercise signal and the difference between exercise conditions and the mean exercise signal.

The cost of construction projects depends on their size, complexity, and duration. Construction management applies effective management techniques to the planning, design, and construction of a project from conception to completion for the purpose of controlling time, cost and quality. A real options approach in construction projects, improves strategic thinking by helping planners recognize, design and use flexible alternatives to manage dynamic uncertainty. In order to manage uncertainty using this approach, it is necessary to value the real options. Real option models assume independence of option holder and the impacts of underlying uncertainties on performance and value. The current work proposes and initially tests whether project management reduces the value of real options. The example of resource allocation is used to test this hypothesis. Based on the results, it is concluded that project management reduces the value of real options by reducing variance of the exercise signal and the difference between exercise conditions and the mean exercise signal.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / For many practitioners and market participants, the valuation of financial derivatives is considered of very high importance as its uses range from a risk management tool, to a speculative investment strategy or capital enhancement. A developing market requires efficient but accurate methods for valuing financial derivatives such as American options. A closed form analytical solution for American options has been very difficult to obtain due to the different boundary conditions imposed on the valuation problem. Following the method of solving the American option as a free boundary problem in the spirit of the "no-arbitrage" pricing framework of Black-Scholes, the option price and hedging parameters can be represented as an integral equation consisting of the European option value and an early exercise value dependent upon the optimal free boundary. Such methods exist in the literature and along with risk-neutral pricing methods have been implemented in practice. Yet existing methods are accurate but inefficient, or accuracy has been compensated for computational speed. A new numerical approach to the valuation of American options by cubic splines is proposed which is proven to be accurate and efficient when compared to existing option pricing methods. Further comparison is made to the behaviour of the American option's early exercise boundary with other pricing models.

Contingent Claim Pricing with Applications to Financial Risk Management By Hua Chen 2008 Committee Chair: Samuel H. Cox and Shaun Wang Major Academic Unit: Department of Risk Management and Insurance This is a multi-essay dissertation designed to explore the contingent claim pricing theory with non-tradable underlying assets, with emphasis on its applications to insurance and risk management. In the first essay, I apply the real option pricing theory and dynamic programming methods to address problems in the area of operational risk management. Particularly, I develop a two-stage model to help firms determine optimal switching triggers in the event of an influenza epidemic. In the second essay, I examine mortality securitization in an incomplete market framework. I build a jump-diffusion process into the original Lee-Carter model and explore alternative model with transitory versus permanent jump effects. I discuss pricing difficulties of the Swiss Re mortality bond (2003) and use the Wang transform to account for correlations of the mortality index over time. In the third essay, I study the valuation of the non-recourse provision in reverse mortgages. I model the various risks embedded in the HECM program and apply the conditional Esscher transform to price the non-recourse provision. I further examine the premium structure of HECM loans and investigate whether insurance premiums are adequate to cover expected claims.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / For many practitioners and market participants, the valuation of financial derivatives is considered of very high importance as its uses range from a risk management tool, to a speculative investment strategy or capital enhancement. A developing market requires efficient but accurate methods for valuing financial derivatives such as American options. A closed form analytical solution for American options has been very difficult to obtain due to the different boundary conditions imposed on the valuation problem. Following the method of solving the American option as a free boundary problem in the spirit of the "no-arbitrage" pricing framework of Black-Scholes, the option price and hedging parameters can be represented as an integral equation consisting of the European option value and an early exercise value dependent upon the optimal free boundary. Such methods exist in the literature and along with risk-neutral pricing methods have been implemented in practice. Yet existing methods are accurate but inefficient, or accuracy has been compensated for computational speed. A new numerical approach to the valuation of American options by cubic splines is proposed which is proven to be accurate and efficient when compared to existing option pricing methods. Further comparison is made to the behaviour of the American option's early exercise boundary with other pricing models.

This thesis introduces and discusses the notion that real options theory can be applied to investment decisions when the value lies in human capital. This approach contributes in circumventing traditional problems which arise during valuation of intangible assets. This leads to the development of HR (human resource) options, which can be defined as “investments in the human capital pool of an organization that provide the capability to respond to future contingent events” (Bhattacharya & Wright, 2005), or “real options featuring intangible assets” (A. Berk & Kaše, 2010), created through HR practices or strategies. Different HR options (i.e. compensation plans, recruitments, temporary workers) have been studied by scholars and have been shown to have an effect in different aspects of a firm (i.e. growth, flexibility, learning). The different categories of uncertainties surrounding (the valuation of) human capital are discussed; they are relevant for the case study of this thesis. The thesis focuses on recruiting as a HR option: a single recruitment is viewed as an investment project and an attempt to determine its Net Present Value is made. For this reason, a valuation model is developed with help of continuous-time stochastic processes which have been previously used for similar purposes in research. The model is then implemented in a real-world scenario, with data either taken from publicly available market indexes and from statistical processing of employee data provided by a large (500+ employees) consulting company, active across various sectors of the Swedish industry. The expected value of a single recruitment is therefore determined. Sensitivity analyses are then carried out with the intent to provide insight into how certain parameters (and, in extension, the HR processes that determine them) affect the expected value of a recruitment. A conclusion which should be kept in mind during reading is that the main objective of this paper is not the valuation part itself. Instead, it is the discussion about different parameters, the listing of uncertainties involved, and the sensitivity of the result to various HR practices, which seek to bring understanding regarding the recruitment process and HR options in general. / Denna avhandling introducerar och diskuterar uppfattningen att realoptionsteori kan tillämpas på investeringsbeslut när värdet ligger i humankapital. Detta tillvägagångssätt bidrar till att kringgå traditionella problem som uppstår vid värdering av immateriella tillgångar. Detta leder till utvecklingen av HR-alternativ, som kan definieras som "investeringar i humankapitalpoolen i en organisation som ger förmågan att svara på framtida betingade händelser" (Bhattacharya & Wright, 2005), eller "reala optioner med immateriella tillgångar” (A. Berk & Kaše, 2010), skapade genom HR-praxis eller strategier. Olika HR-alternativ (t.ex. kompensationsplaner, rekryteringar, tillfälligt anställda) har studerats av forskare och har visat sig ha en effekt i olika aspekter av ett företag (t.ex. tillväxt, flexibilitet, lärande). De olika kategorierna av osäkerheter kring (värderingen av) humankapital diskuteras; de är relevanta för fallstudien av denna avhandling. Avhandlingen fokuserar på rekrytering som ett HR-alternativ: en enstaka rekrytering ses som ett investeringsprojekt och ett försök att fastställa dess nettonuvärde görs. Av denna anledning utvecklas en värderingsmodell med hjälp av kontinuerliga stokastiska processer som tidigare använts för liknande ändamål i forskning. Modellen implementeras sedan i ett verkligt scenario, med data hämtade från allmänt tillgängliga marknadsindex och från statistisk bearbetning av personaldata från ett stort (500+ anställda) svenskt konsultföretag. Därefter bestäms förväntningsvärdet av en enstaka rekrytering. Känslighetsanalyser genomförs sedan i syfte att ge insikt i hur vissa parametrar (och i förlängningen de HR-processer som bestämmer dem) påverkar det förväntade värdet av en rekrytering. En slutsats som bör hållas i åtanke under läsningen är att huvudsyftet med denna uppsats inte är själva värderingsdelen. Istället är det diskussionen om olika parametrar, uppräkningen av inblandade osäkerheter och resultatets känslighet för olika HR-praxis, som försöker skapa förståelse för rekryteringsprocessen och HR-möjligheter i allmänhet.

This thesis concerns with a comparison of two advanced option-pricing techniques applied on European-style DAX index options. Specifically, the study examines the performance of both the stochastic volatility model based on asymmetric nonlinear GARCH, which was proposed by Heston and Nandi (2000), and the artificial neural network, where the conventional Black-Scholes-Merton model serves as a benchmark. These option-pricing models are tested with the use of the dataset covering the period 3rd July 2006 - 30th October 2009 as well as of its two subsets labelled as "before crisis" and "in crisis" data where the breakthrough day is the 17th March 2008. Finding the most appropriate option-pricing method for the whole periods as well as for both the "before crisis" and the "in crisis" datasets is the main focus of this work. The first two chapters introduce core issues involved in option pricing, while the subsequent third section provides a theoretical background related to all of above-mentioned pricing methods. At the same time, the reader is provided with an overview of the theoretical frameworks of various nonlinear optimization techniques, i.e. descent gradient, quassi-Newton method, Backpropagation and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The empirical part of the thesis then shows that none of the...

The first chapter investigates how corporate governance influences firms’ capital structure behavior. Based on the premise that costs associated with deviations from the target capital structure are positively correlated to the extent of deviation, we hypothesize that the initial deviation from the target will be shorter for a firm with good corporate governance than for a firm with poor corporate governance. We also hypothesize that the former group will employ a higher speed of adjustment towards target than the latter group due primarily to the following reasons. First, a firm with well-placed governance system will adjust at a faster rate because longer it stays deviated, the higher the loss of value it faces. Second, firms with better governance structures enjoy lower adjustment costs. We develop three sets of measures for the quality of corporate governance and analyze how they influence a firm’s rebalancing behavior in presence of relevant control variables. Our results are consistent with the hypotheses. The second chapter explores investors’ reactions to new information on REITs and non-REITs option markets. The real estate market can be fairly volatile; what remains unclear is whether price changes are excessively volatile relative to fundamentals. This study attempts to examine the latter by using the methodology based on Stein (1989), which utilizes option data. The advantage of using option data rather than stock data to assess the reactions to information is that option valuation is not affected by changes in risk premium. Under volatility mean reversion, the changes in implied volatilities of long-term options should be less than those of short-term options. If not, an excessive reaction is suggested. Specifically, the study compares the changes in implied volatilities of options on REITs and non-REITs. Because real estate transactions typically involve a great degree of leverage, reactions can be greater for REITs than for non-REITs; on the other hand, there are several reasons that REITs are subject to potentially a lower degree of excessive reactions. Empirical results indicate that the reactions to information are stronger in non-REITs than in REITs. Moreover, we find that down markets are associated with stronger reactions, which we argue might be due to a leverage effect.

Topic of the master thesis is the Financial Instruments in Bank Accounting. The master thesis looks at bookkeeping and accounting of financial instruments in international financial reporting standards context. The main reporting standards which are discussed in the paper are: IAS 32, IAS 39, IFRS 7 and IFRS 9. In the first part, the reporting standards impact on banks as commercial subjects, legislation of bank operations, financial instruments and accounting in both a national and international context are presented. The focus of master thesis is examined in the second and third sections where financial instruments are discussed in detail and their characteristics, initial recognition, subsequent measurement and accounting are also examined. The next topic is the issue of the reclassification of financial instruments and their impairment is discussed. The forth part of the thesis examines IFRS 7. The standard has claims on the disclosure of financial instruments in both the statement of financial position and statement of comprehensive income. IFRS 7 also has claims on related areas including disclosure of credit, liquidity and market risk. The last part deals with news in the examined area where the main focus is IFRS 9.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:40:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carl Douglas De Gennaro Oliveira.pdf: 1342470 bytes, checksum: 9868002de42872f20913eb856aa2b173 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-24 / The process of Brazil s compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) took a big step forward, definitively getting on the agenda of regulatory agencies, companies and auditing firms, when Federal Law 11.638 was signed in December 2007, altering the accounting chapter of Brazilian Corporate Law, 6.404/76. This study contributes to Brazil s process of compliance with the IFRS, specifically regarding the applicability of IFRS 2 Share-based Payment, or its Brazilian corollary CPC 10 Pagamento Baseado em Ações, and the impact on accounting and on the disclosure of a long-term compensation program for executives, characterized as phantom stock options. IFRS 2 was published in February 2002 and was required internationally from January 2005, as an outcome of the growing use of commercial transaction payments based on shares, and also the IOSCO´s report that pointed out the lack of an accounting standard dealing with this kind of transaction. The study found that IFRS 2 or CPC 10 can be appropriately applied to guide the accounting treatment given to a phantom stock option program, and was a more informative accounting practice than that which had been used in Brazil, before 2008. The study also found a wide-spread need of financial knowledge regarding the valuation of stock options, such as the Black-Scholes-Merton model, as well as statistical methods for appropriately account and disclose the fair value of share-based incentive plans. Furthermore, in order to understand more fully the economic event which is being accounted, it is highly important to understand its essence. In the case of long-term share-based incentives for executives, the essence of their existence can be found in agency theory / O processo de convergência do Brasil às Normas Internacionais de Contabilidade (IFRSs) deu um grande salto e entrou definitivamente na agenda dos órgãos reguladores, empresas e auditorias, com a sanção da lei federal 11.638 em dezembro de 2007, que alterou o capítulo contábil da Lei das Sociedades Anônimas, 6.404/76. Este estudo contribui para o processo de convergência brasileiro às IFRSs, especificamente quanto à aplicabilidade do IFRS 2 Share Based Payment, ou sua correlação brasileira CPC 10 Pagamento Baseado em Ações, e dos impactos contábeis e de divulgação decorrentes de um programa de compensação de longo prazo a executivos, com as características de phantom stock options, ou opções fantasmas. O IFRS 2 foi publicado em fevereiro de 2002 e requerido internacionalmente a partir de janeiro de 2005, como uma decorrência do crescente uso de pagamento das transações comerciais com base em ações e também do relatório da IOSCO, que identificou como falha a lacuna de norma contábil que tratasse deste tipo de transação. O estudo identificou que o IFRS 2 ou CPC 10 aplica-se adequadamente para orientar o tratamento contábil de um programa de phantom stock option e representou uma prática contábil mais informativa que aquela até então adotada no Brasil, antes do ano de 2008. O estudo também identificou a grande necessidade de conhecimento de finanças relacionado à avaliação de opções, tal como o modelo Black-Scholes-Merton, bem como de métodos estatísticos, para uma apropriada contabilização e divulgação do valor justo dos planos de incentivo baseados em ações. Além disso, para que se entenda com profundidade o evento econômico que se contabiliza, é de suma importância a compreensão de sua essência. No caso de incentivos de longo prazo para executivos, baseados em ações, a essência de sua existência pode ser encontrada na Teoria de Agência