We consider a supply chain where the quality level can be observed by the buyer(s) onlyafter the purchase is completed (experience good). If the delivered quality is below the levels agreed in the contract, the buyer(s) may take action to seek remedy, but this effort is costly. Obviously, this...

We study the buyer-seller relationship in a supply chain from the perspective of quality. In particular, weexamine situations where quality levels of the product can be observed, yet, conformance cannot be enforcedunless the buyer engages in costly, legally-binding activity, which we call audit....

We consider the economic lot-sizing (ELS) game with general concave ordering cost.In this cooperative game, multiple retailers form a coalition by placing joint orders to asingle supplier in order to reduce ordering cost. When both the inventory holding costand backlogging cost are linear...

This paper reports a study of the nature of specifications in high interaction service processes. It builds on two exploratory case studies of airline companies to describe the elements that are used to define and control service processes. The findings reveal the service specification as a...

We examine the performance of the off-shore hedge fund industry over the period 1989-1995 using a database that includes both defunct and currently operating funds. The industry is characterized by high attrition rates of funds, low covariance with the U.S. stock market, evidence consistent with...

In an incomplete market economy, all claims cannot be priced uniquely based on arbitrage. The prices of attainable claims (those that are spanned by traded claims) can be determined uniquely, whereas the prices of those that are unattainable can only be bounded. We first show that tighter price...

We study the performance of a stylized supply chain where two firms, a retailer and a producer, compete in a Stackelberg game. The retailer purchases a single product from the producer and afterwards sells it in the retail market at a stochastic clearance price. The retailer, however,...

We consider the one-warehouse multiple retailer inventory model with a sub modular joint setup cost function. The objective of this model is to determine an inventoryreplenishment policy that minimizes the long-run average system cost over an infinitetime horizon. Although the optimal policy for...

We study large-scale service systems with multiple customer classes and many statistically identical servers. The following question is addressed: How many servers are required (staffing) and how does one match them with customers (control) in order to minimize cost or maximize profit, subject...

We use sample path arguments to derive convexity properties of an M/M/S queue withimpatient customers that balk and renege. First, assuming that the balking probability andreneging rate are increasing and concave in the total number of customers in the system(head-count), we prove that the...