Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Health, Food, And Agricultural Economics, Saber Feizy

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation comprises three distinct but interrelated projects that explore the intersection of agriculture, nutrition, and economics. The first project investigates the impact of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) food programs on the health outcomes of its participants. Using fixed effects models and a matching algorithm, the study finds that while conventional fixed effects models indicate a significant effect of CSA participation on diet-related medical expenditures, our modified time-heterogenous fixed effects model did not find a meaningful effect. The results of the matching method are consistent with those of our modified model.

The second project examines racial disparities in the prevalence …

Formation Of Supply Chain Contract: Theory And Experiment, Lei Hua

Management Dissertations

In recent years, the globalization in business has transformed the traditional linear supply chain into a complex network of interactions among supply chain participants across different tiers. In such a supply chain system, firms are facing the challenges of making better operational decisions on strategic sourcing and collaborative/competitive negotiations. My dissertation explores the formation of supply chain contract under competitive scenarios in complex supply chain networks from both theoretical and behavioral perspectives. Specifically, Essay 1 examines the implications of asymmetric bilateral relations for supply contract negotiations under retail competition and highlights the intuition that a firm should not only focus …

Re-Thinking Risk Management Of Auction House Guarantees And Third-Party Irrevocable Bids, Nathan Krasnick

MA Theses

This paper addresses the question of how deviations between expected and actual art auction results impact the auction guarantees made within an artist’s market and among multiple artists, and whether those impacts can be identified and quantified. To do so, I use a theoretical pricing model based on datasets of historical auction records going back to the earliest available date for a specific artist but no further than 2010. I find that, in comparing the model’s expected and actual results to empirical price deviations at auction, we can identify and quantify the impact of those deviations on guarantees.

The Celebrity Factor: An Evaluation Of The Effect Celebrity Provenance At Auction, Danielle Gray

MA Theses

The effect of celebrity provenance on value of fine art and design is a recent phenomenon that can be explained by unpacking the changing profile of collectors, the rise of the digital age and contemporary fascination with celebrity. Understanding these changes will shed light on different factors that contribute to the premium often associated with celebrity sales. Although research has been done before on this topic before, the research neglects to look at the auction house as a factor in understanding the effects of celebrity provenance. By evaluating the celebrity, and the auction houses, relationship to the works of art …

Have Traditional Auction Houses Been Affected By Online Ones?: The Case Of Phillips And Paddle8, Heejae Chung

MA Projects

There is always a strong demand for high quality art and collectibles. With the analysis of the case study and the interviews with experts from different auction houses, this paper will show whether the traditional auction markets have been affected by online ones.

Phillips is taking a strong hold over the middle market. In particular, Phillips’ Contemporary art department is known for focusing on younger artists, which represents lower prices than other areas. To compare in a fair way in terms of price and genre of artworks, Phillips’ Contemporary Art Day Sales in New York from 2006 to 2016 will …

Robust Distributed Scheduling Via Time Period Aggregation, Shih-Fen Cheng, John Tajan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Shih-Fen Cheng

In this paper, we evaluate whether the robustness of a market mechanism that allocates complementary resources could be improved through the aggregation of time periods in which resources are consumed. In particular, we study a multi-round combinatorial auction that is built on a general equilibrium framework. We adopt the general equilibrium framework and the particular combinatorial auction design from the literature, and we investigate the benefits and the limitation of time-period aggregation when demand-side uncertainties are introduced. By using simulation experiments on a real-life resource allocation problem from a container port, we show that, under stochastic conditions, the performance variation …

Robust Distributed Scheduling Via Time Period Aggregation, Shih-Fen Cheng, John Tajan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Shih-Fen Cheng

In this paper, we evaluate whether the robustness of a market mechanism that allocates complementary resources could be improved through the aggregation of time periods in which resources are consumed. In particular, we study a multi-round combinatorial auction that is built on a general equilibrium framework. We adopt the general equilibrium framework and the particular combinatorial auction design from the literature, and we investigate the benefits and the limitation of time-period aggregation when demand-side uncertainties are introduced. By using simulation experiments on a real-life resource allocation problem from a container port, we show that, under stochastic conditions, the performance variation …

Robust Distributed Scheduling Via Time Period Aggregation, Shih-Fen Cheng, John Tajan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Shih-Fen CHENG

In this paper, we evaluate whether the robustness of a market mechanism that allocates complementary resources could be improved through the aggregation of time periods in which resources are consumed. In particular, we study a multi-round combinatorial auction that is built on a general equilibrium framework. We adopt the general equilibrium framework and the particular combinatorial auction design from the literature, and we investigate the benefits and the limitation of time-period aggregation when demand-side uncertainties are introduced. By using simulation experiments on a real-life resource allocation problem from a container port, we show that, under stochastic conditions, the performance variation …

Technology Licensing In A Differentiated Oligopoly, Aniruddha Bagchi, Arijit Mukherjee

Faculty and Research Publications

We show the effects of product differentiation and product market competition on technology licensing by an outside innovator. For a certain range of product differentiation, both the innovator and the society prefer royalty licensing compared to auction (or fixed-fee), irrespective of Cournot and Bertrand competitions, if the number of potential licensees is sufficiently large. Hence, for such a range of product differentiation, neither the innovator nor the antitrust authority requires information about the type of product market competition in choosing the type of the licensing contract.

Call Auction Transparency And Market Liquidity, Evidence From The Shanghai Stock Exchange, Gary G. Tian, Dionigi Gerace, Alex Frino

Dionigi Gerace

This paper examines the impact of pre-trade information transparency in pre-open call auction on market liquidity on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE). We examine the natural experiment affected by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in July 2006 when it changed its pre-open auction algorithm from an entirely black box into a limited transparent system with a closed order book. We find that the increase in pre-trade information transparency coincides with a statistically significant reduction in spread at the best quotes. The reduction in spread persists even after controlling for known determinants of depth. Furthermore, there is also evidence of a statistically …

Robust Distributed Scheduling Via Time Period Aggregation, Shih-Fen Cheng, John Tajan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we evaluate whether the robustness of a market mechanism that allocates complementary resources could be improved through the aggregation of time periods in which resources are consumed. In particular, we study a multi-round combinatorial auction that is built on a general equilibrium framework. We adopt the general equilibrium framework and the particular combinatorial auction design from the literature, and we investigate the benefits and the limitation of time-period aggregation when demand-side uncertainties are introduced. By using simulation experiments on a real-life resource allocation problem from a container port, we show that, under stochastic conditions, the performance variation …

Allocating Resources In Multiagent Flowshops With Adaptive Auctions, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhengyi Zhao, Sam Shuzhi Ge, Thong Heng Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of allocating machine resources among multiple agents, each of which is responsible to solve a flowshop scheduling problem. We present an iterated combinatorial auction mechanism in which bid generation is performed within each agent, while a price adjustment procedure is performed by a centralized auctioneer. While this approach is fairly well-studied in the literature, our primary innovation is in an adaptive price adjustment procedure, utilizing variable step-size inspired by adaptive PID-control theory coupled with utility pricing inspired by classical microeconomics. We compare with the conventional price adjustment scheme proposed in Fisher (1985), and …

Procure Financing For Shipping By Auctions, Kekun Wu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

We study a risk management problem in the scenario of ship procurement. A shipping firm faces a certain financing pressure for the procurement of a new ship. On the other hand, the capacity of the ship excesses the demand requirement of the firm. The firm wants to reduce the payment and control the risk by selling a percentage of capacity to another shipping company. We introduce an auction mechanism for the firm to select the partner and determine the sharing percentage. Acting as the auctioneer, the firm announces a certain percentage of capacity to a set of buyers. The payment …

Call Auction Transparency And Market Liquidity: The Shanghai Experience, Dionigi Gerace, Gary G. Tian, Willa Hua-Qing Zheng

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

On July 1 2006, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) changed its pre-market openingauction system from an entirely black box into a more transparent system with indicativeauction prices, indicative equilibrium volume and indicative unexecuted volumedisseminated in real time throughout the pre-opening period. This paper use the naturalexperiment offered by SHSE to investigate the impact of opening call transparency onmarket liquidity. The dynamics of the opening process and its impact on trading activityfor the rest of the day is of interest to traders because traders can either cluster their tradesduring the non-trading period or withhold their orders until the market opens. We …

Relationship Preserving Auction For Repeated E-Procurement, Park J., Lee J., Lau H.

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While e-procurement auction has helped firms to achieve lower procurement costs, auction mechanisms that prevail at present in procurement markets need to address an important issue that concerns the ability to maintain long term relationships with the partners, especially in repeated e-procurement settings. In this paper, we propose a Relationship Preserving Auction (RPA) mechanism that augments the conventional auction mechanism with a bidder relationship scoring model. Our proposed mechanism gives increased chances of winning to the bidders who have bidden at relatively competitive price but had comparatively less wins so far. Keeping these bidders in the auction over time will …

Call Auction Transparency And Market Liquidity, Evidence From The Shanghai Stock Exchange, Gary G. Tian, Dionigi Gerace, Alex Frino

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the impact of pre-trade information transparency in pre-open call auction on market liquidity on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE). We examine the natural experiment affected by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in July 2006 when it changed its pre-open auction algorithm from an entirely black box into a limited transparent system with a closed order book. We find that the increase in pre-trade information transparency coincides with a statistically significant reduction in spread at the best quotes. The reduction in spread persists even after controlling for known determinants of depth. Furthermore, there is also evidence of a statistically …

Essays On Risk And Incentives, Russell Engel

WCBT Faculty Publications

I use economic experiments to investigate individual behavior under uncertainty. The first essay examines the consistency of risk preferences over two institutions. The two institutions I use are the first price sealed bid auction and a Holt-Laury lottery. There is some controversy as to whether or not observed overbidding in first price auction is actually caused by risk aversion or simply consistent with it. Behavior in the Holt-Laury lottery being caused by risk aversion is not in dispute. By having the same subjects participate in both institutions, I show that subjects.risk preferences in the lottery are consistent with subjects' risk …

Sellers In Online Auction Markets: Introducing A Feedback-Based Classification, Radha Appan, Zhangxi Lin

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Trading in the online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) auction market necessitates buyers and sellers to engage in transactions with anonymous counterparts. The sequence of paying first and then taking delivery introduces a great amount of risk for potential buyers. In order to assist buyers in dealing with this risk, online auction markets (OAMs) are employing reputation-scoring systems and traders can be classified in terms of their online reputation scores. A review of the literature suggests a conspicuous absence of the study on any standard classification of sellers in OAMs. Lack of such a classification hinders systematic research and theory development. Therefore, a …

Deciding On The Appropriateness Of B2b Reverse Auction Technology Adoption: An Ahp Approach Combined With Integer Programming, Tobias Schoenherr

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Although Business-to-Business online reverse auctions have emerged as a promising purchasing tool, no research has been found that provides a model to assess the reverse auction decision in a systematic way. This paper fills this gap by presenting an integrated approach, utilizing Analytic Hierarchy Process techniques and an Integer Programming Formulation, to decide whether Reverse Auction Technology (RAT) adoption is cost-effective and appropriate. The model developed is a practical decision support tool that allows for the consideration of both qualitative and quantitative decision factors, and for the adoption of multiple modes of RATs, which are contrasted to traditional purchasing.

An Investigation Of Internet Auction Markets: Evidence From Ebay, Kevin Bracker, Ken Smith

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The purpose of this paper was to examine a market with different characteristics than a typical “financial” market using high frequency continuous transactions data. The market selected for this purpose was an Internet auction market for collectibles, specifically Ty Glory BearsTM sold on the eBay, Inc. web site. This market was chosen for its relatively high activity and homogeneity. The results indicated evidence of signaling related to seller’s reputation and product information, seasonality based on day-of-the-week, and limited market dept h.

Online Reverse Auctions: An Overview, Ching-Chung Kuo, Pamela Rogers, Richard E. White

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is the fastest growing area in the U.S. economy with electronic procurement (e-procurement) being a major component, and online reverse auctions (ORAs) have emerged as a key e-procurement tool. Since the mid-1990s, ORAs have been gaining in popularity because of their potentially significant positive impact on the profitability of both the buyers and the sellers. Much has been written about the new purchasing paradigm and numerous stories have been reported recently. This paper is aimed at providing a critical review of ORAs by examining their historical developments, different forms, advantages, and disadvantages. In addition, 10 important factors …

Hsus Exposes Livestock Transportation Cruelty

Close Up Reports

After a massive investigation covering nine months, twenty states, and more than 20,000 miles, The HSUS has documented that every day and every night, thousands of cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and other animals are being crowded, beaten, electrically shocked, trampled--or even killed--during miserable journeys that ultimately end at the slaughterhouses of this country.

Animals are injured during loading, then forced to negotiate dark truck interiors, steep ramps, narrow doorways, sharp turns, and slippery flooring. They are loaded so hurriedly that they knock down or climb onto those animals ahead of them and are crowded so tightly that they injure or …