This paper presents an extensive theoretical and empirical analysis of the choice of schedule buffers by airlines. With airline delays a continuing problem around the world, such an under-taking is valuable, and its lessons extend to other passenger transportation sectors. One useful lesson from...

Sophisticated collusive compensation schemes such as assigning future market shares or direct transfers are frequently observed in detected cartels. We show formally why these schemes are useful for dampening deviation incentives when colluding firms are temporary asymmetric. The relative...

We consider a multi-service transportation system in which passengers are heterogeneous along two dimensions, namely ideal departure time and value of time, leading to both horizontal and vertical differentiation. We investigate the behavior of passengers, and assess how service pricing and...

This paper revisits the airline schedule-buffer choice problem analyzed by Brueckner, Czerny and Gaggero (2020) using a simpler model where the random shocks influencing flight times are discrete rather than continuous. The analysis yields closed-form solutions for the flight and ground buffers...

This paper develops a dynamic programming method when the one-stage deviation principle in the sense of mechanism design literature doesn’t hold. The commonly used dynamic programming method is valid only if the one-stage deviation principle in the sense of mechanism design literature is...

We introduce a novel approach to solving dynamic programming problems, such as those in many economic models, on a quantum annealer, a specialized device that performs combinatorial optimization. Quantum annealers attempt to solve an NP-hard problem by starting in a quantum superposition of all...

This paper defines isomorphism for network formation that is not mathematically isomorphic. Once the pattern of network formation is characterized, one can test for (i) location fixed effects, (ii) heterogeneity, (iii) private information allowing for long-term contracts. The paper provides...

We analyze optimal compensation schedules for the directors of two plants belonging to the same owner and producing the same good but serving geographically differentiated markets. Since the outcome of each director depends on his own effort and on a random variable representing market...