Inventory management under uncertainty: A financial theory for the transactions motive

This paper examines the effects of risk aversion and output market uncertainty on optimal inventory policy decisions for a transactions demand for inventory using the capital asset pricing theory. The paper shows that (1) the optimal order quantity of the risk-adjusted value-maximizing firm is smaller than that of the expected-profit-maximizing one and (2) the greater the firm's output market uncertainty, the smaller its optimal order quantity, where the output market uncertainty is defined as the relative volatility of the demand for the firm's output.     

Road pricing with optimal mass transit

This paper considers the second-best policy problem that arises when auto travel is priced below its marginal cost and there is a substitute mass transit mode. Using analytical methods, a global comparison is made between the second-best levels of transit service and the fare and their first-best levels. The fact that the results are global permits an application to road pricing not possible with the local results of Kraus (2003).     

Voting on road congestion policy

This paper studies the political economy of urban traffic policy. A city council and a regional government (representing city and suburbs) decide respectively on parking fees and a road toll. Both charges are below the optimum when median voters in city and suburbs prefer cars to public transport sufficiently more than the average. Even if the city government would set an optimal road toll, the regional government blocks it when the median suburban voter prefers cars strongly enough. Letting the city control parking and road pricing may therefore increase chances of adoption of the latter. However, if the city controls parking and the region road pricing, the combined charges are higher than if the city controlled them both. Hence, when voters want all charges below the optimum, the involvement of two governments may be desirable. We also find that earmarking road pricing revenues for public transport is welfare-enhancing, compared to lump-sum redistribution, only if they are topped up by extra funds granted to the city by a higher level of government.     

Exclusivity and Control

We model competition between content distributors (platforms) for content providers, and show that whether or not content is exclusive or “multihomes” depends crucially on whether or not content providers maintain control over their own pricing to consumers: if content providers sell their content outright and relinquish control, they will tend to be exclusive; on the other hand, if content providers maintain control and only “affiliate” with platforms, then multihoming is sustainable in equilibrium. We show that the outcome under affiliation depends on the tradeoff between platform rent extraction (which increases in exclusivity) and content rent extraction (which increases in multihoming), and demonstrate that the propensity for exclusivity can be increasing, decreasing, or even nonmonotonic in content quality. Finally, if a content provider internalizes the effect of its own price on platform demand, we prove that a platform that already has exclusive access to content may prefer to relinquish control over content pricing to the content provider in order to reduce price competition at the platform level.     

Disciplinary Takeovers and Industry Effects

This paper presents a disciplinary explanation for some seemingly paradoxical stylized facts from the takeover literature. Most notable among these are: (1) hostile takeovers are predicted better by industry-wide than by firm-specific performance failures; and (2) gains from a successful bid for a specific firm extend to other firms in the same industry. Our explanation is based on the idea that managerial incentives based on relative performance evaluation may induce an inefficient industry-wide equilibrium in which all firms underperform with respect to a value-maximizing firm, but no firm underperforms with respect to the industry average. A takeover can serve as a means to destroy such an inefficient industry-wide incentive equilibrium.     

Manufacturing and Rural Economies in the United States: The Role of Nondurable Producers, Labor Costs and State Taxes

This paper investigates the preferences of manufacturers in deciding whether to locate in metropolitan or nonmetropolitan (rural) areas. Using 1997 state-level data and OLS regression estimation, it was determined that nondurable goods manufacturers prefer rural areas, while durable goods manufacturers are indifferent as to area. However, both sets of manufacturers prefer to locate in larger states. Wage rates are not significant in the regressions, while durable manufacturers appear sensitive to state taxes. Some policy conclusions for local economic developers are derived from these findings.     

工程建设项目物流服务定价的优化研究

描述了工程建设项目物流服务的特点,分析了影响工程建设项目物流服务企业定价的几个重要因素。在此基础上,将作业成本计算法(Activity Based Costing)导入到物流服务分步定价和综合定价这两种常用的定价方式中,并具体论述了ABC方法对这两种定价方式的优化作用。     

消费量陷阱与非线性定价模型的改进--以全球通和神州行为例

本文对“产量陷阱”概念进行了修正，提出了“消费量陷阱”概念，证明了消费量陷阱与社会福利的变化方向相同，因而，存在消费量陷阱是实施非线性定价的必要条件。本文将全球通和神州行两种计费方式作为消费者面临的整体价格条件，定义了边际价格折线，进而定义了二阶非线性定价、三阶非线性定价；以消费量陷阱和边际价格折线为基础，定义了分界点、分界线，进而建立了线性最优定价模型、改进的二阶非线性最优定价模型和改进的三阶非线性最优定价模型。     

Chain-Store Pricing Across Local Markets

Chain‐stores now dominate most areas of retailing. While retailers may operate nationally or even internationally, the markets they compete in are largely local. How should they best operate pricing policy in respect of the different markets served—price uniformly across the local markets or on a local basis according to market conditions? We model this by allowing local market differences, with retail markets differing by their size and the number of players present. We show that practising price discrimination is not always best for a chain‐store. Competitive conditions exist under which uniform pricing can raise profits.     

On exploiting scale economies

Indivisibilities give rise to scale economies in the provision of many local public services. Exploitation of these scale economies often requires that the activities of several communities be coordinated. In this study we analyze the game analog to a simple waste collection system in order to determine the requirements for the design of a financing system that will sustain optimal participation in a regional service system plan. We find that market based pricing in the face of scale economies created by indivisibilities will generally not support an optimal partition of communities into service districts. We also find that characterization of the game structure of local public service delivery systems is feasible and provides information for designing appropriate cost-sharing arrangements.     

我国现行政府价格机制制定的问题及建议

政府制定价格机制行为与百姓生活息息相关,从这个意义上讲政府价格机制制定问题就是民生问题。由于市场经济自身存在着无法克服的缺陷,政府规制便成为对经济进行宏观调控的必然选择,政府制定价格机制就是政府规制的方式之一。我国目前正处于经济转型的战略选择期,政府如何更好地制定价格机制,使之真正实现服务发展、稳定经济、造福民众的规制目标,是摆在我们面前的一道现实问题。本文尝试通过对我国医疗服务价格规制的分析,探讨我国现行价格机制制定的问题以及谈谈本人建议。     

Short-selling restrictions,takeovers and the wealth of long-run shareholders

In this paper we consider a situation in which a firm may be able to influence the investors’ ability to short-sell its stock. We analyze the effect short-selling restrictions have on the market price and the subsequent effect generated on the market for corporate control. More precisely, we argue that short-selling restrictions may lead to exclusion of pessimistic beliefs and may therefore inflate prices. Thus, if a company is poorly managed and has a stock with strong short-selling restrictions, a profitable takeover will not emerge because of the high stock price. The raider may not have the incentives to acquire the company as its price will be above its fundamental value, conditional on takeover, even accounting for the potential benefits of takeover. We then argue that such effects are detrimental to long-run shareholders and that a value-maximizing strategy is to have a stock with no short-selling restrictions.     

Crowdshipping in last mile deliveries: Operational challenges and research opportunities

This paper contributes to the emerging body of research on crowdshipping, which is a collaborative strategy that distributes delivery tasks to a mass of actors that act as ordinary couriers, aiming at reducing delivery costs and supporting sustainability. The study focuses on last mile delivery activities, where numerous app-based delivery platforms have recently emerged. The paper provides an overview of the operational characteristics of these platforms based on an in-depth study of a sample of major crowdshipping services (state-of-practice) and a comprehensive review of the state-of-research. After comparing platform services and characteristics, we identified four core (typological) factors that differentiate services: platform (service) type, delivery type, delivery mode, and pricing strategy; and six categories for service challenges and opportunities. Moreover, the review of the state-of-research synthesized their findings with respect to the identified practical challenges to discover opportunities for future work. Overall, the study found that there is a mismatch between practical challenges and scientific solutions. The literature has not addressed all challenges identified in practice, such as couriers’ work conditions and pricing, which are still unresolved issues. The majority of articles were exploratory in nature with their findings based on hypothetical random instances. More research is needed with empirical case studies to evaluate the service net effects on each actor (e.g., senders, receivers, couriers, and platforms) in particular, and on the society in general, in terms of traffic externalities, quality of life, cost and revenue. The paper ends with a discussion of promising areas for future research.     

Location-scale portfolio selection with factor-recentered skew normal asset returns

This paper analyzes the single period portfolio selection problem on the location-scale return family. The skew normal distribution, after recentering and reparameterization, is shown to be in this family. The recentered and reparameterized distribution, called factor-recentered skew normal, can be expressed as a skew factor model which is characterized by a location parameter and two scale parameters. Risk preference on scale parameter is non-monotonic and risk averse investors prefer larger (smaller) scale when the scale is negative (positive). The three-parameter efficient set is a part of conical surface bounded by two lines. Positive-skewness portfolios and negative-skewness portfolios do not coexist in the efficient set. Numerical cases under constant absolute risk aversion are analyzed with its closed-form certainty equivalent. An asset pricing formula which nests the CAPM is obtained.     

Pricing competition with inventory considerations in a hazard rate-prone market of durables

This paper addresses Bertrand-type pricing competition between two firms producing partially differentiated durables over a finite planning horizon. The demand for durables, characterized by increasing returns of scale to a price reduction, is led by the hazard rate. While the effect of inventories on pricing of non-durables is widely recognized, the management and marketing literature typically overlooks this effect in regard to horizontally competing firms for durables. In this paper we show that the pricing trajectory of durables may significantly alter when inventory dynamics are accounted for. In particular, the price may hike upwards before dropping; gradually grow; or even stay at the same level over the entire product life while it would only decline if inventories and related costs are disregarded. Furthermore, the well-known, optimal pricing strategy of following the pattern of sales does not necessarily confirm even for symmetric equilibria when the competing firms have either an inventory surplus or shortage.     

A new class of multidimensional Wishart-based hybrid models

In this article, we present a new class of pricing models that extend the application of Wishart processes to the so-called stochastic local volatility (or hybrid) pricing paradigm. This approach combines the advantages of local and stochastic volatility models. Despite the growing interest on the topic, however, it seems that no particular attention has been paid to the use of multidimensional specifications for the stochastic volatility component. Our work tries to fill the gap: we introduce two hybrid models in which the stochastic volatility dynamics is described by means of a Wishart process. The proposed parametrizations not only preserve the desirable features of existing Wishart-based models but significantly enhance the ability of reproducing market prices of vanilla options.

     

市场机制下孵化器创新创业服务体系研究

为进一步助推“双创”升级,创孵机构一直不断地探索着新的商业模式、探索优质资源,进一步改善运作效率。在目前的市场经济环境中,要实现创新创业服务资源的最优配置,就需要结合市场机制研究孵化器的服务模式。文章分析了市场机制下孵化器创新创业服务的定价模型,根据该模型得到孵化器市场化运作效率的影响因素。基于该定价模型进行实证研究,可以分析得到孵化器在实际市场运行过程中存在的问题,并以创业黑马为例进行了创新创业服务运营的实例分析。根据该定价模型与实证分析结果,提出了从服务内容优化、服务效率优化、孵化器品牌战略、入孵筛选机制优化等方面优化孵化器运营模式,探寻适合孵化器长期可持续发展的创新创业服务体系,从而进一步助推创新创业。     

The Limitations of Signalling by the Choice of Accounting Methods

This paper attempts to find an explanation of why empirical evidence does not confirm the signalling hypothesis that income- increasing accounting methods, such as linear depreciation, are typically chosen by firms with positive inside information. First, specific characteristics of the legal environment are required, as signalling by an income-increasing accounting method is only possible when the increase in the tax rate and the taxes paid is larger for the unsuccessful firm. Moreover, fiscal law may only offer the discrete choice between linear and accelerated depreciation and a certain method is only allowed for tax purposes when it is also recorded in the financial statements. Because the number of signalling levels offered by the law is limited, signalling by the choice of an income- increasing accounting method can only occur in industries where accelerated depreciation is the value-maximizing choice for all types. Finally, not all firms can reveal positive inside information because contracting structures differ between firms. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

A revenue management approach to demand management and order booking in assemble-to-order manufacturing

Revenue management is an order acceptance and refusal process that employs differential pricing strategies and stop sales tactics to reallocate capacity, enhance delivery reliability and speed, and realize revenue from change order responsiveness in order to maximize the revenue from pre-existing capacity. While previously considered primarily as a tool of service operations, revenue management has considerable potential for assemble to order (ATO) manufacturing environments. Increasing demand for customer responsiveness has created service-oriented manufacturing environments suitable for the application of revenue management methods. This paper applies revenue management concepts and techniques to ATO manufacturing environments and presents models for optimal pricing and capacity decisions.     

Coordination, Differentiation, and the Timing of Radio Commercials

This paper examines the timing of commercial breaks by contemporary music radio stations. A simple model shows that stations may prefer, all else equal, to choose the same times (coordination) or different times (differentiation) for breaks depending on how listeners behave. It also shows that how much commercials overlap in Nash equilibrium should vary in different ways with observable market characteristics, such as the number of stations, depending on whether stations prefer to coordinate or differentiate. Panel data on the timing of commercials by 1,094 stations provide consistent support for the hypothesis that stations prefer to coordinate on timing .