We obtain a recursive formulation for a general class of contracting problems involving incentive constraints. Under these constraints, the corresponding maximization (sup) problems fails to have a recursive solution. Our approach consists of studying the Lagrangian. We show that, under standard...

The paper develops a method to solve higher-dimensional stochastic control problems in continuous time. A finite difference type approximation scheme is used on a coarse grid of low discrepancy points, while the value function at intermediate points is obtained by regression. The stability...

Customer choice behavior, such as 'buy-up' and 'buy-down', is an important phe-nomenon in a wide range of industries. Yet there are few models or methodologies available to exploit this phenomenon within yield management systems. We make some progress on filling this void. Specifically, we...

We develop a mathematical programming approach for the classical PSPACE - hard restless bandit problem in stochastic optimization. We introduce a hierarchy of n (where n is the number of bandits) increasingly stronger linear programming relaxations, the last of which is exact and corresponds to...

Most methods of multivariate analysis rely on a measure of proximity between individual cases or samples to quantify inter-sample differences. The choice of this measure is fundamental to the method and its subsequent results. For example, when data are abundance counts of a set of species at...

This article aims to identify the key groups of regions with respect to farms oriented to fruit and citrus production. Twenty variables of fruit and citrus oriented farms corresponding to forty-one regions of the European Union were analyzed. Seven groups emerged from cluster analysis. Only two...