The optimal control problem of determining advertising efforts for a seasonal good in a heterogeneous market is considered. We characterize optimal advertising exposures under different conditions: the general situation in which several wide-spectrum media are available, under the assumption of...

This paper explores the implications of time varying volatility for optimal monetary policy and the measurement of welfare costs. We show how macroeconomic models with linear and quadratic state dependence in their variance structure can be used for the analysis of optimal policy within the...

We present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a class of optimal control problems with pure state constraints for which the objective function is linear in the state variable but the objective function is otherwise only restricted to be upper semicontinuous in the control variable.

A socially desirable number of royalties-paying users of state-owned broadcasting spectrum is derived within an optimal control framework that allows free entry and exit. The analysis takes into account the trade-off between the benefits from higher variety and royalties’ revenues and the...

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...

We consider the problem of maximizing terminal utility in a model where asset prices are driven by Wiener processes, but where the various rates of returns are allowed to be arbitrary semimartingales. The only information available to the investor is the one generated by the asset prices and, in...

Increasing renewable generation results in growing supply uncertainty. By now hydrostorages are the most efficient way of smoothing uncertain power supply. In liberalized and competitive markets the valuation of hydro storages investment projects needs to take the market information and...

Software can be distributed closed source (proprietary) or open source (developed collaboratively). While a firm cannot sell open source software, and so loses potential sales revenue, the open source software development process can have a substantial positive impact on the quality of a...

A socially desirable number of royalties-paying users of a state-owned broadcasting spectrum is derived within an optimal control framework where the adjustment of the number of users to above-normal profits is adversely affected by sunk costs. The optimal control takes into account the tradeoff...