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...

In this work, we address the problem of finding a minimum cost spanning tree on a single source flow network. The tree must span all vertices in the given network and satisfy customer demands at a minimum cost. The total cost is given by the summation of the arc setup costs and of the nonlinear...

In the dominant literature, the technological-knowledge bias that drives wage inequality is determined by the market-size channel. We develop an endogenous growth model with two technologies in which: a specific quality of labour, low or high-skilled, is combined with a specific set of...