The catalog industry is a large and important industry in the US economy. One of the most important and challenging business decisions in the industry is to decide who should receive catalogs, due to the significant mailing cost and the low response rate. The problem is a dynamic one - when a...

Increases in car ownership and usage have resulted in serious traffic congestion problems in many large cities worldwide. Innovative travel modes and services can play an important role in improving the efficiency and sustainability of transportation systems. In this study, we evaluate the...

Traditionally, industrial buyers have focused on long-term contracts for many of their purchasing needs. Recently, however, some high-tech manufacturers have started looking at more flexible contracts for non-strategic components, which enables them to buy from a variety of suppliers and the...

Theorists suggest the rising value of human capital will mean greater participation by employees in the ownership and governance of firms. This thesis explores aspects of these claims by analyzing the competitive effects of the allocation of ownership and authority in ad agencies and airlines....

Pricing of a perishable product over a multi-period time horizon is a challenging problem under an oligopolistic market framework. We propose and study a model for multi-period pricing in an oligopolistic market for a single perishable product. Each participating seller in the market has a fixed...

Most of the logistics systems involve a multi-level distribution system structure due to value added by a multi-level configuration. Interactions of these levels, i.e. echelons, should be considered while making strategic decisions regarding the choice of the size, number and location of...

Buyout options allow bidders to instantly purchase at a specified price an item listed for sale through an online auction. A temporary buyout option disappears once a regular bid above the reserve price is made, while a permanent option remains available until it is exercised or the auction...

Many strategies for asset allocation involve the computation of expected returns and the covariance or correlation matrix of financial instruments returns. How much of each instrument to own is determined by an attempt to minimize risk (the variance of linear combinations of investments in these...

(cont.) In the second part of the thesis, we focus on the design and analysis of simple, possibly non-coordinating contracts in a single-supplier, multi-retailer supply chain where retailers make both pricing and inventory decisions. Specifically, we introduce a buy-back menu contract to improve...

Investors commonly use stopping rules to help them get in and out of their investment positions. Despite their widespread use and support from behavioral finance, there has been little discussion of their impact on portfolio performance in classic portfolio choice theory. In this thesis, I...