We compare three different approaches studied by past literature on data-driven inventory optimization--- Frequentist Parametric (FP), Bayesian Parametric (BP) and Nonparametric--- for the newsvendor problem. For the Parametric approaches, we allow for mis-specification of the demand model. We...

We study general dynamic programming problems with continuous and discrete choices and general constraints. The value functions may have kinks arising (1) at indifference points between discrete choices and (2) at constraint boundaries. Nevertheless, we establish a general envelope theorem:...

A divide and conquer algorithm for exploiting policy function monotonicity is proposed and analyzed. To solve a discrete problem with n states and n choices, the algorithm requires at most nlog2(n)+5n objective function evaluations. In contrast, existing methods for nonconcave problems require...