We study the following question: How does competition influence the inventory holdings of General Motors' dealerships operating in isolated U.S. markets? We wish to disentangle two mechanisms by which local competition influences a dealer's inventory: (1) the entry or exit of a competitor can...

Automobile manufacturers in the U.S. supply chain exhibit significant differences in their days of supply of finished vehicles (average inventory divided by average daily sales rate). For example, from 1995 to 2004, Toyota consistently carried approximately 30 fewer days of supply than General...

Retailers must constantly strive for excellence in operations; extremely narrow profit margins leave little room for waste and inefficiency. This article reports a retailer's challenge to balance transportation, shelf space, and inventory costs. A retailer sells multiple products with stochastic...