Abstract: This chapter first summarizes Response Surface Methodology (RSM), which started with Box and Wilson’s article in 1951 on RSM for real, non-simulated systems. RSM is a stepwise heuristic that uses first-order polynomials to approximate the response surface locally. An estimated...

Short-term performance of a production management system for make-to-stock factories may be quantified through the service rate per shift; long-term performance through the average monthly work in process (WIP). This may yield, for example, that WIP is minimized, while the probability of the...

Abstract: This article surveys optimization of simulated systems. The simulation may be either deterministic or random. The survey reflects the author’s extensive experience with simulation-optimization through Kriging (or Gaussian process) metamodels. The analysis of these metamodels may use...

We present an experimental study of a risky sequential bargaining to model negotiations in risky joint ventures that proceed through multiple stages.Our example is the production of a movie that may give rise to a sequel, so actors and producers negitiate sequentially.We compare the predictions...

The hypothesis that, on average, people accurately estimate probabilities in random walk processes is experimentally investigated.Individuals are confronted with a process that starts with $X, and in every stage either goes up or down by $1, with probabilities p and 1 - p respectively.For...

We present a definition of increasing uncertainty, independent of any notion of subjective probabilities, or of any particular model of preferences.Our notion of an elementary increase in the uncertainty of any act corresponds to the addition of an 'elementary bet' which increases consumption by...

Abstract: The financial crisis has been attributed partly to perverse incentives for traders at banks and has led policy makers to propose regulation of banks’ remuneration packages. We explain why poor incentives for traders cannot be fully resolved by only regulating the bank’s top...

This paper generalizes the theory of irreversible investment under uncertainty by allowing for risk averse investors in the absence of com-plete markets.Until now this theory has only been developed in the cases of risk neutrality, or risk aversion in combination with complete markets.Within a...