Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons^™

Strategic Supplier Dynamics And Decision-Making In Supply Chain Management: Exploring Market Segmentation, Copycatting, And Encroachment, Shobeir Amirnequiee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, we explore the intricate dynamics of supplier relationships and strategic decision-making within the realm of Operations Management, focusing on the critical aspects of supply chain management. The research consists of three papers, each offering unique insights into supplier dynamics and their implications for manufacturers and businesses.

The first paper presents a robust framework for joint learning of consumer preferences and market segmentation. Leveraging ideas from machine learning and mathematical programming, this framework efficiently segments the customer base and accurately learns preferences without compromising consumer privacy. By optimizing assortment decisions, this approach maximizes profits and offers superior prediction …

Three Essays On Irregular Entries To The End-Customer Market, Hamid Elahi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I study irregular entries to the end-customer market and the impact of such entries on suppliers, buyers, and customers. I am particularly interested in the irregularities of supplier encroachment and counterfeiting problems. This dissertation addresses these issues and proposes solutions in the form of three essays. In the first essay, I study a supply chain, consisting of a supplier and a buyer where the supplier can encroach on the end-customer market and keeps private information on its own production capacity. The supplier can decide on its capacity allocation and the buyer can order strategically, hoarding the supply capacity, to remove …

Application Of A Polynomial Affine Method In Dynamic Portfolio Choice, Yichen Zhu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis develops numerical approaches to attain optimal multi-period portfolio strategies in the context of advanced stochastic models within expected utility and mean-variance theories. Unlike common buy-and-hold portfolio strategies, dynamic asset allocation reflects the investment philosophy of a portfolio manager that benefits from the most recent market conditions to rebalance the portfolio accordingly. This enables managers to capture fleeting opportunities in the markets thereby enhancing the portfolio performance. However, the solvability of the dynamic asset allocation problem is often non-analytical, especially when considering a high-dimensional portfolio with advanced models mimicking practical asset's return. To overcome this issue, this thesis presents …

Coding Ivey Publishing: Building Sustainable Values For Tomorrow's Business Leaders, B. Pick

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

A reflection on the future of sustainability in business as it pertains to Ivey Publishing's case collection and the coding system developed through the USRI program.

Optimal Pricing And Treatment Policies In Health Care, Gregory J. Critchley

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Health care decision makers are faced with many types of uncertainty. There may be uncertainty in the benefit a new treatment provides, uncertainty in the demand for the new treatment, and uncertainty in the drug approval process. In three essays, I study the impact of various types of uncertainty within health care systems.

In the first essay, I study the welfare properties of six practical pharmaceutical pricing and access policies. Using a game theoretic approach, I find that when demand can be influenced by costly marketing effort, there are meaningful differences to the desirability of various pricing and listing agreements, …

Essays On The Economics Of Digital Piracy, Zhuang Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My thesis consists of three chapters relating to the economics of digital piracy. Digital piracy is a debated topic catching tremendous academic and public attention. My studies contribute to the understanding of the impact of digital piracy on legitimate sales revenue with a focus on the motion picture industry.

In my first chapter, I examine the effects of screener piracy on the movie box office. Screeners are movie copies sent to critics and industry professionals for evaluation purposes. Sometimes, screeners are leaked and made available to download on the Internet. This chapter exploits the plausibly exogenous variation of file sharing/piracy …

A Study In Three Practical Management Science Problems, John S.F. Lyons

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study of practical problems in Management Science (MS) describes novel mathematical models for three different decision settings. It addresses questions of: (a) what optimal route should be taken through a time-windows and topographically complex network; (b) what optimal sequencing of scheduled surgeries best coordinates flow of patients through central recovery; and (c) what prices should be charged and what stock amounts should be produced for two markets or channels to maximize profit explicitly, given various capacity and uncertainty conditions.

The first problem is in a sport analytics context, using a novel Integer Programming and big data from Whistler-Blackcomb ski …

The Effect Of Corporate Visibility On Corporate Social Responsibility, Zhichuan Li, Taylor Morris, Brian Young

Business Publications

Outside of direct ownership, the general public may feel it is an implicit stakeholder of a firm. As the public becomes more vested in a firm’s actions, the firm may be more likely to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. We proxy for the public’s stake in a firm with public visibility. Based on 3,400 unique newspaper publications from 1994 to 2008, we measure visibility for the U.S. S&P 500 firms with the frequency of print articles per year concerning the firm. We find that visibility has a signficant, positive relationship with the CSR rating. Evidence also suggests this …

Three Essays On Intensive Care Unit Capacity Planning, Felipe F. Rodrigues

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a resource-intensive, costly environment. Data gathered from patients during their stay in the ICU has traditionally been used for clinical purposes, but can have a significant impact on healthcare capacity planning and patient flow. There is a need to study how metrics collected in Canadian ICUs, such as the Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS) score and the Nine Equivalents of Nursing Manpower Use Score (NEMS) can be used to improve capacity planning decisions. Using discrete-event simulation, statistical, survival and machine learning models, I have built long- and short-term capacity planning models to help hospital …

Industry Tournament Incentives, Zhichuan Li

Business Publications

We empirically assess industry tournament incentives for CEOs, as measured by the compensation gap between a CEO at one firm and the highest-paid CEO among similar (industry, size) firms. We find that firm performance, firm risk, and the riskiness of firm investment and financial policies are positively associated with the external industry pay gap. The industry tournament effects are stronger when industry, firm, and executive characteristics indicate high CEO mobility and a higher probability of the aspirant executive winning.

Some Applications Of Higher-Order Hidden Markov Models In The Exotic Commodity Markets, Heng Xiong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The liberalisation of regional and global commodity markets over the last several decades resulted in certain commodity price behaviours that require new modelling and estimation approaches. Such new approaches have important implications to the valuation and utilisation of commodity derivatives. Derivatives are becoming increasingly crucial for market participants in hedging their exposure to volatile price swings and in managing risks associated with derivative trading. The modelling of commodity-based variables is an integral part of risk management and optimal-investment strategies for commodity-linked portfolios. The characteristics of commodity price evolution cannot be captured sufficiently by one-state driven models even with the inclusion …

Contracts To Promote Optimal Use Of Optional Diagnostic Tests In Cancer Treatment, Salar Ghamat, Gregory S. Zaric, Hubert Pun

Business Publications

In this study, we examine performance-based payment contracts to promote the optimal use of an optional diagnostic test for newly diagnosed cancer patients. Our work is inspired by three trends: tremendous increases in the cost of new, advanced cancer drugs; development of new diagnostic tests to allow physicians to tailor treatment to patients; and changes in healthcare funding models that reward quality care. We model the interaction between two parties—a healthcare payer and an oncologist, in which the oncologist has private information about patients’ characteristics (adverse selection) and the payer does not know whether the oncologist takes the optimal course …

Three Essays On Incentive Problems Of Parties With Potential Conflict Of Interest, Salar Ghamat

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I study the impact of different incentives on strategic decisions of parties that have the option of cooperating with each other. Incentive problems are well studied in various contexts, such as supply chain management and healthcare operations management. However, in the fast-changing business environment, there is a need to study and understand the new and emerging strategic behaviors of firms to adopt better incentive mechanisms and reach desired outcomes. This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the strategic behavior of parties under different incentive schemes. In the first essay, I study the supply chain partnership of two potential competitors …

Discrete Event Simulation Model For Planning Level 2 “Step-Down” Bed Needs Using Nems, Felipe F. Rodrigues, Gregory S. Zaric, David Stanford

Business Publications

In highly congested hospitals it may be common for patients to overstay at Intensive Care Units (ICU) due to blockages and imbalances in capacity. This is inadequate clinically, as patients occupy a service they no longer need; operationally, as it disrupts flow from upstream units; and financially as ICU beds are more expensive than ward beds. Step-down beds, also known as Level 2 beds, have become an increasingly popular and less expensive alternative to ICU beds to deal with this issue. We developed a discrete event simulation model that estimates Level 2 bed needs for a large university hospital. The …

Three Essays On Managing Customer-Based Strategies: A Pricing And Revenue Management Approach, Foad Hassanmirzaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many firms and organizations with already-optimized business functions are under market pressure to protect their narrow profit margins. Their need for supplemental and reliable revenues calls for performance optimization beyond the core business functions. Motivated by applications from online social media and the airline industry, in my dissertation, I focus on the revenue management and pricing decisions of customer-based plans and programs. More formally, the research question addressed in this study is: How can firms effectively use customer-based pricing strategies to boost revenues?

My dissertation consists of three essays. In the first essay, I analyze the ongoing competition among online …

Modeling Pharmaceutical Risk-Sharing Agreements, Reza Mahjoub

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many new and expensive drugs have been introduced in the past 10 years. However, at the time of introduction, the effectiveness of these drugs outside of clinical trials is often unknown. This creates a risk to third-party payers, as the outcome of these drugs in real-world practice is uncertain at the time of introduction. A pay-for-performance risk-sharing agreement is a type of contract that shares part of this risk with the manufacturer by linking the performance of a drug to the manufacturer’s revenue. This dissertation consists of three essays to examine the performance of two types of pharmaceutical pay-for-performance risk-sharing …

Incomplete Market Models Of Carbon Emissions Markets, Walid Mnif

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

New regulatory frameworks have been developed with the aim of decreasing global greenhouse gas emissions over both short and long time periods. Incentives must be established to encourage the transition to a clean energy economy. Emissions taxes represent a "price" incentive for this transition, but economists agree this approach is suboptimal. Instead, the "quantity" instrument provided by cap-and-trade markets are superior from an economic point of view. This thesis focuses on the cap-and-trade instrument. Carbon emissions markets have recently been implemented in different countries. We summarize the state of world cap-and-trade schemes. We also provide a literature review of existing …

Valuation Of Multiple Exercise Options, T. James Marshall

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Multiple exercise options may be considered as generalizations of American-style options as they provide the holder more than one exercise right. Examples of financial derivatives and real options with these properties have become more prevalent over the past decade and appear in sectors ranging from insurance to energy industries. Throughout the thesis particular attention is paid to swing options although we note that the methods described are equally applicable to other types of multiple exercise options. This thesis presents two novel methods for pricing multiple exercise option by simulation; the forest of stochastic trees and the forest of stochastic meshes. …

Real Options Models In Real Estate, Jin Won Choi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Our aim in this thesis is to investigate the usefulness of real options analysis, taking case studies of problems in real estate. In the realm of real estate, we consider the following three problems. First, we consider the valuation and usefulness of presale contracts of condominiums, which can be viewed as similar to call options on condominiums. Secondly, we consider the valuation of farm land from the perspective of land developers, who may think of farm land as being similar to call options on subdivision lots. Third, we consider the valuation of opportunities to install solar panels on properties, in …

The Newsvendor Problem With Pricing, Craig Sorochuk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the newsvendor problem with pricing, the seller of homogeneous items attempts to maximize expected profit by setting price(s) and inventory level(s) before realizing exact demand for the items. The first step in solving the problem is to model this demand, which in the literature, is most commonly done using additive or multiplicative uncertainty, often without justification for either choice. From here, the problem is solved in a variety of ways. In this document, a model for demand is derived from two basic quantities: size of customer base and distribution of reservation prices of the population, where a reservation price …

Incentives For Optimal Allocation Of Hiv Prevention Resources, Monali M. Malvankar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The thesis consists of three main chapters on optimal incentives for a multi-level allocation process of HIV/AIDS prevention funds. HIV/AIDS prevention funds often traverse several levels of distribution. At each level, equity-based heuristics are often used by decision-makers that may lead to sub-optimal allocation. Mathematical programming models may help to allocate prevention funds optimally. Thus, incentives could be given to decision-makers to encourage optimal allocation.

Chapter 4 investigates the impact of incentives by developing a model in which an upper-level decision-maker (UD) allocates funds to a single lower-level decision-maker (LD) who then distributes funds to local programs. The UD makes …

Simulation-Based Valuation And Counterparty Exposure Estimation Of American Options, Kin Hung Kan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Valuing American options is a central problem in option pricing since the early-exercise feature is very common among financial or insurance derivatives products. For high-dimensional American options, Monte Carlo simulation is generally regarded as the only viable approach to price them, and this is the focus of our work. We propose a new regression-based Monte Carlo algorithm for pricing American options. This method typically generates an upper bound of the option value. It is computationally efficient and generates accurate price estimates.

To improve the convergence rate, we apply a bias reduction technique to the least-squares Monte Carlo estimators of American …