it has long been recognized that applications of the net present value
(NPV) investment decision making methodology can have serious deficie
ncies in situations where investment can be delayed and, once made, fu
ture decisions allow increases or decreases in the level of output, Wh
ile the necessity of period by period analysis is sometimes acknowledg
ed, little if any practical illustrative model building has beers publ
ished to date, aside from algorithms using continuous time stochastic
processes which appear difficult to implement, This paper illustrates
in discrete time the analysis of project NPV as a portfolio of exotic
option. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.