Journal Article When Are Real Options Exercised? An Empirical Study of Mine Closings Get access Alberto Moel, Alberto Moel Monitor Corporate Finance, Monitor Group Address correspondence to Peter Tufano, Harvard Business School, Morgan Hall, Soliders Field, Boston, MA 02163, or e-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Peter Tufano Peter Tufano Harvard Business School and NBER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 15, Issue 1, January 2002, Pages 35–64, https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/15.1.35 Published: 16 June 2015

In 1997, France Telecom went through a partial privatization. Using a database that tracks over 200,000 eligible participants, we analyze employees’ decisions whether to participate; how much to invest; and what stock alternatives to select. The results are broadly consistent with a neoclassical model of investing behavior. We report four anomalous findings: (1) The firm specificity of human capital has a negligible effect on employees’ investment decisions; (2) the amount invested seems driven by different forces than the decision to participate, and we attempt to measure an apparent “threshold effect”; (3) employees “left on the table” benefits worth one to two months’ salary by failing to participate; and (4) most participants underweighted the most valuable asset.