Nuclear energy is economic and does not emit CO2 but has two central setbacks. First, it has not been yet implemented an efficient method of disposing the spent fuel. Second, the reactors’ complexity is expensive and turns possible the occurrence of accidents. In this paper, first I propose a...

Although it is known that there are circumstances where the competitive situation does not promote social welfare maximization, collusion is usually associated with firms’ strategies that decrease welfare. In this paper, using the theoretical framework of the industrial organization, I...

We propose a framework to solve dynamic nonlinear infinite-horizon models like those found in the standard economic growth literature. We employ a direct method to solve the underlying optimal control problem, something novel in the economic literature. Instead of deriving the necessary...

The Minimum Cost Network Flow Problem (MCNFP) includes a wide range of combinatorial optimization problems. Many applications exist for MCNFPs for instance supply chains, logistics, production planning, communications and transportations. Concave costs are, in many applications, more realistic...

The Portuguese banking sector has been recently subjected to important structural changes. The diversification of the supply of financial services, the specialization phenomena and the growing importance of new technologies are changing the sector dramatically. A profit perspective is used to...

In this work we address the facility network restructuring problem. This problem is closely related to location/allocation and set covering problems. However, none of the above includes all its complexity nor involves all the decision types. Due to the presence of economies of scale, another...

In this work we address investment decisions using real options. A standard numerical approach for valuing real options is dynamic programming. The basic idea is to establish a discrete-valued lattice of possible future values of the underlying stochastic variable (demand in our case). For most...

In this work, we address an investment problem where the investment can either be made immediately or postponed to a later time, in the hope that market conditions become more favourable. In our case, uncertainty is introduced through market price. When the investment is undertaken, a fixed sunk...

In a standard cash-flow data-sheet analysis, the quantification of the impact of exogenous variables and management decisions on the investment’s Net Present Value is limited to only a few scenarios. This perspective is insufficient for an efficient risk management in complex business...

This research uncovers a well-defined monetary policy regime starting in 1986 in the aggregate Euro Area. Both alternative solution-estimation methods employed - optimal control cum GMM, and dynamic programming cum FIML - identify a regime of strict inflation targeting with interest rate...