Decision analysts commonly use low-order discrete approximation of probability distributions to reduce computational effort. We have found that three popular discretization methods can lead to serious errors in certain applications, among them, news vendor problem and scheduling decisions for...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, 2009.

The analysis of stochastic models is often greatly complicated if there are censored observations of the random variables. This paper characterizes families of distributions which help keep tractable the analysis of such models. Our primary motivation is to provide guidance to practitioners in...

We investigate the firm's dynamic nonlinear pricing problem when facing consumers whose tastes vary according to a scalar index. We relax the standard assumption that the firm knows the distribution of this index. In general the firm should determine its marginal price schedule as if it were...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, 2009. "While all work in this dissertation is original, Chapters 2 and 3 are joint work with Professors Nils Rudi and Harry Groenevelt respectively, and Chapter 4 is solo work"--Acknowledgments.