Abstract
This paper generally presents an overview of the evolution, categories and application of the real option model. The real option is a specific instrument for risk assessment developed on the basis of a model created by Merton (1973) in his article "The theory of rational option pricing".
This article follows the consequent development of this model into two evolution branches - one is represented by the simplified models based on the work of Box, Cox and Rubinstein (1979), the second one expands the stochastic version of the Merton's model and could be represented by the work of Dixit, Pindyck (1994).