Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Business

A Nonparametric Method For Pricing And Hedging American Options, Guiyun Feng, Guangwu Liu, Lihua Sun Dec 2013

A Nonparametric Method For Pricing And Hedging American Options, Guiyun Feng, Guangwu Liu, Lihua Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we study the problem of estimating the price of an American option and its price sensitivities via Monte Carlo simulation. Compared to estimating the option price which satisfies a backward recursion, estimating the price sensitivities is more challenging. With the readily-computable pathwise derivatives in a simulation run, we derive a backward recursion for the price sensitivities. We then propose nonparametric estimators, the k-nearest neighbor estimators, to estimate conditional expectations involved in the backward recursion, leading to estimates of the option price and its sensitivities in the same simulation run. Numerical experiments indicate that the proposed method works …


The Principles Of The Dry Bulk Ffa Market, Ron Wilson Oct 2013

The Principles Of The Dry Bulk Ffa Market, Ron Wilson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.


On The Allocation Of Exclusive-Use Counters For Airport Check-In Queues: Static Vs. Dynamic Policies, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa Sep 2013

On The Allocation Of Exclusive-Use Counters For Airport Check-In Queues: Static Vs. Dynamic Policies, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we propose a static policy for the optimal allocation of a fixed number of exclusive-use check-in counters dedicated to a single flight. We first provide the motivation for considering the static policy by showing that the dynamic policy already available in the literature suffers from the curse of dimensionality. The objective is to minimize the (expected) total cost of waiting, counter operation, and passenger delay costs which we show to be convex in the number of counters allocated. In those cases where the passenger delay cost is difficult to estimate, we propose an alternative formulation and minimize …


On Properties Of Discrete (R,Q) And (S,T) Inventory Systems, Marcus Ang, Jing-Sheng Song, Mingzheng Wang, Hanqin Zhang Aug 2013

On Properties Of Discrete (R,Q) And (S,T) Inventory Systems, Marcus Ang, Jing-Sheng Song, Mingzheng Wang, Hanqin Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider single-item (r, q) and (s, T) inventory systems with integer-valued demand processes. While most of the inventory literature studies continuous approximations of these models and establishes joint convexity properties of the policy parameters in the continuous space, we show that these properties no longer hold in the discrete space, in the sense of linear interpolation extension and L♮-convexity. This nonconvexity can lead to failure of optimization techniques based on local optimality to obtain the optimal inventory policies. It can also make certain comparative properties established previously using continuous variables invalid. We revise these properties in the discrete space.


Plant Networks For Processing Recyclable Materials, Lieven Demeester, Mei Qi, Luk N. Van Wassenhove Aug 2013

Plant Networks For Processing Recyclable Materials, Lieven Demeester, Mei Qi, Luk N. Van Wassenhove

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We use a modified optimal market area model to examine how links between material recycling and other aspects of operations strategy can shape plant networks for the processing of recyclable materials. We characterize the complementarity of the recyclate ratio, defined as the maximum recycled content, with material versatility and miniscaling of recycling plants. We also observe that it is beneficial to coordinate investments in recycling- and production-related competencies because colocated recycling and production plants (minimills) eliminate recyclate transport. We therefore consider versatile miniplants, defined as a competency that factors in both material versatility and coordinated miniscaling of recycling and production …


Multi-Item Production Planning With Carbon Cap And Trade Mechanism, Bin Zhang, Liang Xu Jul 2013

Multi-Item Production Planning With Carbon Cap And Trade Mechanism, Bin Zhang, Liang Xu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Carbon emission control becomes a challenge in recent years, and carbon emission trading is an effective way to curb carbon emission. This paper investigates the multi-item production planning problem with carbon cap and trade mechanism, in which a firm uses a common capacity and carbon emission quota to produce multiple products for fulfilling independent stochastic demands, and the firm can buy or sell the right to emit carbon on a trading market of carbon emission. A profit-maximization model is proposed to characterize the optimization problem. The optimal policy of production and carbon trading decisions is analyzed, and an efficient solution …


Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan Jul 2013

Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Previous research on port efficiency focuses primarily on the provider’s perspective and assumes that maximizing the output is always desirable. This paper recognizes that maximizing the final output does not necessarily guarantee an efficient system and the notion of port efficiency and service effectiveness needs to be considered from the perspectives of both the provider and the consumer of the port service. The paper proposes a network-DEA model to evaluate the performances of 30 seaports worldwide. The concurrent consideration of efficiency scores from the network-DEA model and the traditional DEA-CCR model will offer valuable insights to port operators on how …


Scheduling Arrivals To A Stochastic Service Delivery System Using Copositive Cones, Qingxia Kong, Chung-Yee Lee, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng May 2013

Scheduling Arrivals To A Stochastic Service Delivery System Using Copositive Cones, Qingxia Kong, Chung-Yee Lee, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we investigate a stochastic appointment-scheduling problem in an outpatient clinic with a single doctor. The number of patients and their sequence of arrivals are fixed, and the scheduling problem is to determine an appointment time for each patient. The service durations of the patients are stochastic, and only the mean and covariance estimates are known. We do not assume any exact distributional form of the service durations, and we solve for distributionally robust schedules that minimize the expectation of the weighted sum of patients' waiting time and the doctor's overtime. We formulate this scheduling problem as a …


Decision Support For Lead Time And Demand Variability Reduction, Xin Fang, Cheng Zhang, David J. Robb, Joseph D. Blackburn Apr 2013

Decision Support For Lead Time And Demand Variability Reduction, Xin Fang, Cheng Zhang, David J. Robb, Joseph D. Blackburn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Companies undertaking operations improvement in supply chains face many alternatives. This work seeks to assist practitioners to prioritize improvement actions by developing analytical expressions for the marginal values of three parameters – (i) lead time mean, (ii) lead time variance, and (iii) demand variance – which measure the marginal cost of an incremental change in a parameter. The relative effectiveness of reducing lead time mean versus lead time variance is captured by the ratio of the marginal value of lead time mean to that of lead time variance. We find that this ratio strongly depends on whether the lead time …


Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Feb 2013

Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how a licensor can optimally design licensing contracts for multi-phase R&D projects when he does not know the licensee’s project valuation, leading to adverse selection, and cannot enforce the licensee’s effort level, resulting in moral hazard. We focus on the effect of the phased nature typical of such projects, and compare single-phase and multi-phase contracts. We determine the optimal values for the upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties, and the optimal timing for outlicensing. Including multiple milestones and accompanying payments can be an effective way of discriminating between licensees holding different valuations, without having to manipulate the royalty …