The relationship between IT and value is complex and often disputed. Researchers and practitioners have created numerous models and valuation methods to capture this value. Although payoffs from IT investment are a function of strategic alignment, most of these models do not address the alignment of business and IT as a factor that influences or creates value. This paper explores the role of bu...

We analyze the valuation partial differential equation for European contingent claims in a general framework of stochastic volatility models where the diffusion coefficients may grow faster than linearly and degenerate on the boundaries of the state space. We allow for various types of model behavior: the volatility process in our model can potentially reach zero and either stay there or instan...

We study valuation of swing options on commodity markets when the commodity prices are driven by multiple factors. The factors are modeled as diffusion processes driven by a multidimensional Lévy process. We set up a valuation model in terms of a dynamic programming problem where the option can be exercised continuously in time. Here, the number of swing rights is given by a total volume constr...

Online social networks are gaining increasing economic importance in light of the rising number of members. The numerous recent acquisitions priced at enormous amounts illustrate this development. Therefore, the growing relevance of online social networks in science as well as in practise revealed the need for adequate valuation models, which take into account these networks’ specific character...

This paper discusses a fundamental market failure regarding environmental conservation, and how the problem can be solved by appropriate policies. A "seller" (or owner of a tropical forest) may be motivated to conserve if a "buyer" is expected to pay. The buyer, however, does not find it necessary to pay as long as the seller conserves in any case. This contradiction implies that the forest wil...

The sequential equilibrium of an ascending-price auction of a single item is derived explicitly for the case of log-normal distributions and a multiplicative valuation model comprising both common and private factors, and allowing asymmetries. If the prior distribution on the common factors is diffuse, or of the form obtained by Bayesian updating from a diffuse prior distribution, then the equi...

In this paper we consider the valuation of an option with time to expiration T and pay-oo function g which is a convex function (as is a European call option), and constant interest rate r, in the case where the underlying model for stock prices (S t) is a purely discontinuous process (hence typically the model is incomplete). The main result is that, for \most" such models, the range of the va...

This paper sets up a model for the valuation of traditional participating life insurance policies. These claims are characterized by their explicit interest rate guarantees and by various embedded option elements, such as bonus and surrender options. Owing to the structure of these contracts, the theory of contingent claims pricing is a particularly well-suited framework for the analysis of the...

This paper develops and tests a model of how knowledge of past decisions affects future related decisions. A boundedly rational decision maker has to provide valuations for two alternatives that she has previously ranked in order of preference. The agent is uncertain about the importance of relevant attributes and can exert costly cognitive effort to resolve this uncertainty. Compared to when o...

Outsourcing of work to support software development and services is seen primarily as a transfer of labor to another shore. But intellectual property, as software, is transferred as well. There are risks when IP is transferred. In order to assess the extent of those risks, one needs to know the value of that concerned software. Software is an intangible good, and the value of intangibles is bas...