The Wageningen School of Social Sciences (WASS) and the Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group (AEP) are glad to announce the Winter School on “Assessing Economic Policies Using the Real Options Methodology” to be held on February 2-6, 2026 in Wageningen (the Netherlands). The course is supported by EAERE.

The course

This course will address the issue of irreversibility from an economic point of view. Different approaches dealing with irreversibilities have emerged in the economic literature. The two most prominent once are the quasi option and real option value theory. Application of both approaches requires technical skills most students find difficult. The objective of the course is to introduce the origins of the quasi option value and real option values, to teach the methods most commonly used (discrete methods such as decision trees; continuous time, continuous state models using stochastic processes; Itó calculus), and to discuss and practice various applications including non-renewable resource use, technology adoption, climate change, forestry, and food- and bio-safety. The course will include two parts. One week of lectures and exercises with assignments and a course paper. For passing the course students need to participate in lectures and exercises (min. 90%) and submit the course paper within six month after the course.

Lecturers

Learning outcomes

After successful completion participants are expected to be able to:

  • Know the economic implications and relevance of the irreversibility effect;
  • Understand economic papers that apply real option models;
  • Apply discrete state models for decision under uncertainty and irreversibility;
  • Know the steps from discrete time, discrete state to continuous time, continuous stat models;
  • Develop real option models and anlyse the results using numerical simulation methods.

Registration

The course is designed for PhD candidates. Min. 10 participants, max. 25 participants. You can register here, selecting the course name.  Deadline for registration is set on December 31, 2025.

More information

Details, course fees and schedule are available on the course’s web page.