This dissertation contains two topics in operations research. The first topic is to design a distribution network to facilitate the repeated movement of shipments from many origins to many destinations. A method is developed to estimate transportation costs as a function of the number of...

We define the class of local Lévy processes. These are Lévy processes time changed by an inhomogeneous local speed function. The local speed function is a deterministic function of time and the level of the process itself. We show how to reverse engineer the local speed function from traded...

Index options have been one of the most successful of the many innovative financial instruments introduced over the last few decades, as their high trading volume indicates. Given their prominence, the pricing efficiency of these markets is of great importance. ; Detecting inefficient pricing,...

Many financial institutions hold derivative securities in their portfolios, and frequently these securities need to be hedged for extended periods of time. Failure to hedge properly can expose an institution to sudden swings in the values of derivatives, such as options, resulting from large,...

Because volatility of the underlying asset price is a critical factor affecting option prices and hedge ratios, the modeling of volatility and its dynamics is of vital interest to traders, investors, and risk managers. This modeling is a difficult task because the path of volatility during the...