The main goal of this paper is to model the effects of wholesale price control on manufacturer's profit, taking explicitly into account the retailer's sales motivation and performance. We consider a stylized distribution channel where a manufacturer sells a single kind of good to a single...

We propose an optimal control problem to model the dynamics of the communication activity of a firm with the aim of maximizing its efficiency. We assume that the advertising effort undertaken by the firm contributes to increase the firm's goodwill and that the goodwill affects the firm's sales....

In this paper we analyze the problem of measuring the advertising efficiency of the Leading US Advertisers during the period 2001-2006. We use the DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) approach that enables to evaluate the relative efficiency in case of multiple inputs and outputs. In particular, the...

In this paper a definition of the exploration performed by stochastic algorithms is proposed. It is based on the observation through cluster analysis of the solutions generated during a run. The probabilities associated by an algorithm to solution components are considered. Moreover, a...

Examining a standard monopolistic competition model with unspecified utility/cost functions, we find necessary and sufficient conditions on their elasticities for welfare losses to arise from trade or market expansion. Two numerical examples explain the losses (under unrealistic elasticities).

The main goal of this research is to analyze Italian tourists' behaviors on the basis of statistical surveys on households, life conditions, incomes, consumptions, travels and vacation. Rough Sets Theory, a Data Mining technique that can easily manage also categorical variables, is suitable for...

In this paper we analyze some issues related to the general problem of information spreading among individuals, where suitable assumptions on the information exchange are considered. In particular, starting from the scheme proposed in [5], which is based on a majority rule to treat the...

We propose a new necessary and sufficient condition to test whether a sequence is Benford (base-b) or not and apply this characterization to some kinds of sequences (re)obtaining some well known results, as the fact that the sequence of powers of 2 is Benford (base-10).

In this paper we analyze the stochastic model proposed by Galam in [2], for information spreading in a `word-of-mouth' process among agents, based on a majority rule. Using the communications rules among agents defined in [2], we first perform simulations of the `word-of-mouth' process and...