We introduce the pathwise optimization (PO) method, a new convex optimization procedure to produce upper and lower bounds on the optimal value (the "price") of a high-dimensional optimal stopping problem. The PO method builds on a dual characterization of optimal stopping problems as...

Continuous-time monopolistic models of advertising expenditure that rely on strict response concavity have been shown to prescribe eventual spending at a constant rate. However, analyses of discrete analogs have suggested that S-shaped response (convexity for low expenditure levels) may allow...

Advertising is one of the key marketing tools managers have at their disposal to influence their customers into purchasing a new product. The overall objective of new product advertising is to inform and persuade customers. Drawing up an advertising plan for a new product that is under the...

This paper studies the potential benefits of collaborative forecasting (CF) partnerships in a supply chain that consists of a manufacturer and a retailer. To reflect the reality in production environments, we propose a scorecard that captures inventory considerations, production smoothing, and...

This paper considers a firm, which has to acquire a certain amount of pollution control equipment in order to comply with government pollution standards. Due to political battles and lobbying efforts, the compliance date and the date when it is announced are not known in advance. Furthermore,...

The two types of mathematical manpower planning models that appear in the literature involve either longitudinal or cross-sectional formulations. Despite the high degree of realism achieved, the use of longitudinal models is limited because the implementation requires the knowledge of a large...

The relationship between commodity inventory and short-term price variations has received considerable attention, but the understanding has been limited to single-stage cross-sectional relation. In this paper, we aim to deepen our understanding of the inventory-price relationship in two...

The M^X/G/1 queueing system is studied under the following two situations: (1) At the end of a busy period, the server is turned off and inspects the length of the queue every time an arrival occurs. When the queue length reaches, or exceeds, a pre-specified value m for the first time, the server...

In this paper, we revisit and clarify the celebrated machine maintenance and sale age model of Kamien and Schwartz (KS) involving a machine subject to failure. KS formulate and solve the problem as a deterministic optimal control problem with the probability of the machine failure as the state...

The purpose of this note is to formulate and solve a dynamic optimization problem based on the Blattberg-Jeuland advertising model. Also examined is the behavior of the optimal long-run equilibrium level of advertising with respect to changes in some important parameters of the problem. In...