An agent is generally defined as an entity capable of perceiving its environment and accomplishing a particular action without explicit instruction. Blindly taking directives without thinking is typically not intelligent, so rather a software agent is deemed intelligent if it may be...

This dissertation focuses on robust coalition formation between selfish agents in a dynamic environment where contracts are unenforceable. Previous research on this topic has covered each different aspect of this problem, but no research successfully addresses these factors in combination....

This dissertation studies important issues in supply chain management and marketing interface research: competition, product line design, and channel efficiency, at the presence of vertically differentiated products. Vertical differentiation as a means of price discrimination has been...

This dissertation explores several aspects of the theory in industrial organization.The first chapter builds a model with two cost asymmetric firms who not only have Cournot competition in the spot market but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. It is shown that with forward...

The economics of information is a broad field covering all aspects of information including decision making. We briefly describe 4 methods used to model the decision-making process. This is not an exhaustive list of the methods used to value information, nor are differences between the methods...

Online advertisements are increasingly becoming an attractive channel for advertising. Pricing for online ads has evolved over time, and different auction-based policies are employed by website publishers to sell online ads. In this paper, we analyze, under different scenarios, the following...

In this paper, we study committee decision making process using game theory. By a committee, we mean any group of people who have to pick one option from a given set of alternatives. A well defined voting rule is specified by which the committee arrives at a decision. Each member has a...

A paradigm shift from static spectrum allocation to dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is becoming a reality due to the recent advances in cognitive radio, wide band spectrum sensing, and network aware real--time spectrum access. It is believed that DSA will allow wireless service providers (WSPs)...

Because sequential auctions have permeated society more than ever, it is desirable for participants to have the optimal strategies beforehand. However, finding closed-form solutions to various sequential auction games is challenging. Current literature provides some answers for specific cases...

This dissertation studies the competitive behavior of firms in supply chain management and revenue management contexts. A game theoretic approach is employed. We analyze capacity allocation and pricing strategies and derive equilibrium solutions for multiple competing firms. We also study...