2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

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INFORMS Nashville – 2016
241
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110A-MCC
Project Related SCM III
Invited: Project Management and Scheduling
Invited Session
Chair: Xiaoqiang Cai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin,
Hong Kong, 000, Hong Kong,
1 - An Iterative Capacity Sharing Mechanism For Freight Forwarders
Minghui Lai, Southeast University, Nanjing, China,
, Weili Xue
We consider the collaboration problem of forwarders in transportation capacity
sharing over a general logistics network. As competition for capacity is intensive
and usually carriers reserve more capacity for big customers, small forwarders can
form an alliance to jointly book allotment capacity before the freight season.
During the season, forwarders observe their private demand realization and then
share the capacity to deliver their services. Capacity sharing also reduces cost, due
to economies of scale from fixed cost. We propose a strategy-proof iterative
mechanism, and prove that the mechanism is finitely convergent and individually
rational.
2 - Value Of Category Captainship With Shelf-space
Dependent Demand
Weili Xue, Southeast University, ,
Minghui Xu
We consider a supply chain with one retailer and two manufacturers, who sell his
product through the retailer to the consumer market. We consider two category
management scenarios. In the retailer category management scenario, the retailer
makes decisions on how to allocate the total shelfspace to all his products, and
what is the selling price for each product. In the captain category management
scenario, the retailer delegates the pricing and allocation decisions to one of the
supplier (the captain). In both scenarios, the retailer will decide the total shelf-
space allocated to this category. We analyze these two scenarios when the selling
prices for both products are exogenously given.
3 - A Noncooperative Game Model And Algorithm For a Utility
Computing System
Pengyu Yan, Associate professor, University of Electronic Science
and Technology of China, Chengdu, China,
Hongru Miao, Nicholas G Hall, Guanhua Wang
Selfish behaviors of resource users and providers can damage the performance of
utility computing systems. Existing market-based approaches effectively allocate
resources and schedule tasks to minimize the costs for users. Using a
noncooperative sequencing game model, we study the providers’ decisions about
the computing resources they allocate to the system to complete tasks. To find a
Nash equilibrium strategy, the model is transformed into a directed bi-valued
cyclic graph, and a polynomial time algorithm is proposed. The price of anarchy
and incentive contract design are also discussed.
4 - Principal-agent vs Revenue Sharing Contracts In The Optimal
Supplier Switching Model With Learning Effect
Qian Wei, Tianjin University, , Jianxiong Zhang
This paper examines two contracts (Principal-agent and Revenue sharing) in a
supplier switching model with considering learning effect. Our analysis reveals
that both contracts can be optimal under different parameter settings.
Furthermore, we compare the two contracts from an ex-post perspective. We find
the switching strategy on the basis of the principal-agent theory dominates that
based on the revenue sharing contract when the learning rate lies in an
intermediate region, while the result is reversed with a relatively large or small
learning rate.
TA26
110B-MCC
Auctions and Econometrics
Invited: Auctions
Invited Session
Chair: Robert Day, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States,
1 - Dynamic Demand Estimation In Auction Markets
Greg Lewis, Microsoft Research New England,
, Matthew Backus
Auction mechanisms play an important part in allocating goods, yet existing
empirical auction techniques treat each auction in isolation, obscuring market
interactions. We provide a framework for estimating demand in a large auction
market with a dynamic population of buyers with unit demand and
heterogeneous preferences over a finite set of differentiated products. We offer an
empirically tractable equilibrium concept, characterize bidding and prove
existence of equilibrium. Having developed a demand system, we show that it is
non-parametrically identified from panel data. We apply the model to measure
consumer surplus in the market for compact cameras on eBay.
2 - Identification And Estimation Of Affiliated Private Values Auctions
With Unobserved Heterogeneity
Jorge Balat, Johns Hopkins,
I consider a first-price auction model with affiliated private values and
unobserved heterogeneity. Both affiliation and unobserved heterogeneity
manifest in bids that are correlated and it is hard to disentangle these two sources
apart from bid data alone. I show that the model is nonparametrically identified
once we allow for endogenous participation and leverage entry data combining
ideas from the control function and measurement error literatures. I propose a
nonparametric estimator and show how one can test for different information
structures. I then take the model to data from highway procurement auctions
from California. I find evidence of both unobserved heterogeneity and affiliation.
3 - Simultaneous First-price Auctions With Preferences
Over Combinations
Matthew Gentry, LSE, United Kingdom, ,
Tatiana Komarova, Pasquale Schiraldi
We develop a structural model of strategic bidding in simultaneous first-price
auctions when objects are heterogeneous and bidders have preferences over
combinations. We then apply this model using data on Michigan Department of
Transportation (MDOT) highway procurement auctions. Our results suggest that
the simultaneous first-price mechanism performs very well relative to
theoretically attractive but practically costly alternatives such as combinatorial
proxy auctions, helping to rationalize the widespread use of simultaneous
auctions in practice.
4 - Robust Data-driven Welfare Guarantees In Auctions
Vasilis Syrgkanis, Microsoft Research, ,
Darrell Hoy, Denis Nekipelov
Analysis of welfare in auctions comes traditionally via one of two approaches:
precise but fragile inference of the exact details of a setting from data or robust
but coarse theoretical price of anarchy bounds that hold in any setting. As
markets get more and more dynamic and bidders become more and more
sophisticated, the weaknesses of each approach are this paper, we
provide tools for analyzing and estimating the empirical price of anarchy of an
auction. The empirical price of anarchy is the worst case efficiency loss of any
auction that could have produced the observed data.
TA27
201A-MCC
New Developments in Sourcing and Selling
Strategies
Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt
Sponsored Session
Chair: Basak Kalkanci, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA,
United States,
Co-Chair: Necati Tereyagoglu, Scheller College of Business,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States,
1 - Strategic Sourcing Under Competition And Asymmetric
Cost Information
Lusheng Shao, The University of Melbourne, Level 10,
198 Berkeley Street, Melbourne, 3010, Australia,
Xiaole Wu, Fuqiang Zhang
We study a sourcing game where competing firms choose between a supplier with
certain cost (C-supplier) and a supplier with potentially lower, but uncertain cost
(U-supplier). We find that with a larger market potential, the firms would more
likely choose a C-supplier despite its higher average cost. The higher cost
uncertainty of a U-supplier may either improve or reduce its attractiveness to the
sourcing firms, depending on its current uncertainty level. The increasing cost of
C-supplier may lead to a new sourcing equilibrium and thus make both sourcing
firms better off.
2 - Money-back Guarantees In A Distribution Channel: Bargaining
Power & Downstream Competition
Yufei Huang, Assistant Professor, University of Bath, Bath, United
Kingdom, , Tingliang Huang, Ying-Ju Chen
Although existing literature emphasizes the usefulness of Money-back
Guarantees (MBG), little is known about why retailers may adopt different MBG
choices in practice. To understand this, we examine two competing retailers’ MBG
decisions, who also simultaneously bargain for wholesale prices with a wholesaler
in a distribution channel. We show that, retailers’ asymmetric bargaining power
may lead to asymmetric MBG choices. We provide economic rationales for all
possible MBG outcomes.
TA27