We study a seller that starts with an initial inventory of goods, has a target horizon over which to sell the goods, and is subject to a set of financial <i>milestone</i> constraints on the revenues and sales that need to be achieved at different time points along the sales horizon. We characterize the...

Equipment manufacturers offer different types of maintenance service plans (MSPs) that delineate payment structures between equipment operators and maintenance service providers. These MSPs allocate risks differently and thus induce different kinds of incentives. A fundamental question,...

In a multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem a gambler needs to choose at each round of play one of K arms, each characterized by an unknown reward distribution. Reward realizations are only observed when an arm is selected, and the gambler's objective is to maximize his cumulative expected earnings...

A new class of online services allows publishers to direct readers from articles they are currently reading to other web-based content they may be interested in. A key feature of such a dynamic recommendation service is that users interact with the provider along their browsing path. While the...

Ad Exchanges are emerging Internet markets where advertisers may purchase display ad placements, in real-time and based on specific viewer information, directly from publishers via a simple auction mechanism. Advertisers join these markets with a pre-specified budget and participate in multiple...

The fields of statistics and econometrics have developed powerful methods for testing the validity (specification) of a model based on its fit to underlying data. Unlike statisticians, managers are typically more interested in the performance of a decision rather than the statistical validity of...

Managing shipping vessel profitability is a central problem in marine transportation. We consider two commonly used types of vessels--"liners" (ships whose routes are fixed in advance) and "trampers" (ships for which future route components are selected based on available shipping jobs)--and...

Firms often finance their inventory through debt and subsequently sell it to generate profits and service the debt. Pricing of products is consequently driven by both inventory and debt servicing considerations. We show that limited liability under debt induces sellers to charge higher prices...