本文精选了管理学国际顶刊《Operations Research》近期发表的论文，提供管理学研究领域最新学术动态。

Menu Costs and the Bullwhip Effect: Supply Chain Implications of Dynamic Pricing

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Robert L. Bray （Northwestern University）

Ioannis Stamatopoulos （The University of Texas at Austin）

Abstract

We study the supply chain implications of dynamic pricing. Specifically, we estimate how reducing menu costs—the operational burden of adjusting prices—would affect supply chain volatility. Fitting a structural econometric model to data from a large Chinese supermarket chain, we estimate that removing menu costs would (i) reduce the mean shipment coefficient of variation by 7.2 percentage points (pp), (ii) reduce the mean sales coefficient of variation by 4.3 pp, and (iii) reduce the mean bullwhip effect by 2.9 pp. These stabilizing changes are almost entirely attributable to an increase in the mean sales rate.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2175

Technical Note—A Monge Sequence-Based Approach to Characterize the Competitive Newsvendor Problem

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Saurabh Bansal （The Pennsylvania State University）

Mahesh Nagarajan （University of British Columbia）

Abstract

We revisit the stochastic inventory game in whichnplayers compete by setting their individual inventory levels in a market with stockout-based demand substitution. Because of specific tractability issues, the prior literature has largely focused on versions of this competitive newsvendor problem with assumptions on the number of players and their substitution behavior. In this note, we develop an approach to solve instances of this problem with any number of players and multistage spillovers of unsatisfied demand. We (i) establish that for multistage stockout-based substitution models explored in the literature, the search (substitution) behavior of customers can be replicated using a Monge sequence; (ii) obtain the first-order conditions that can be then used to determine equilibrium inventory levels; and (iii) discuss other structural properties of the solution based on Bottleneck Monge matrices. Special cases of our approach provide the well-known equilibrium results for two newsvendors.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2189

Separation of Perishable Inventories in Offline Retailing Through Transshipment

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Qing Li （Hong Kong University of Science and Technology）

Peiwen Yu （Chongqing University）

Lilun Du （Hong Kong University of Science and Technology）

Abstract

Transshipment in retailing is a practice where one outlet ships its excess inventory to another outlet with inventory shortages. By balancing inventories, transshipment can reduce waste and increase fill rate at the same time. In this paper, we explore the idea of transshipping perishable goods with a fixed finite lifetime in offline grocery retailing. In the offline retailing of perishable goods, customers typically choose the newest items first, which can lead to substantial waste. We show that in this context, transshipment plays two roles. One is inventory balancing, which is well known in the literature. The other is inventory separation, which is new to the literature. That is, transshipment allows a retailer to put newer inventory in one outlet and older inventory in the other. This makes it easier to sell older inventory and reduces waste as a result. To understand how exactly inventories should be separated, we study a class of heuristic policies whose computation relies on only two pieces of information, namely the number of items expiring in one period (old items) and that of the rest (new items). We show that the optimal policy among them can be characterized by two increasing switching curves. The two switching curves divide the entire state space into three regions. In the first region, only one outlet holds old items while both hold new items. In the second, one outlet holds old items and the other holds new items. In the third, only one outlet holds new items while both hold old items. We also conduct numerical studies to quantify the value of transshipment.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2144

Market Efficient Portfolios in a Systemic Economy

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Kerstin Awiszus （Leibniz Universitat Hannover）

Agostino Capponi （Columbia University）

Stefan Weber （Leibniz Universitat Hannover）

Abstract

We study the ex ante minimization of market inefficiency, defined in terms of minimum deviation of market prices from fundamental values, from a centralized planner’s perspective. Prices are pressured from exogenous trading actions of leverage-targeting banks, which rebalance their portfolios in response to asset shocks. We characterize market inefficiency in terms of two key drivers, the banks’ systemic significance and the statistical moments of asset shocks, and develop an explicit expression for the matrix of asset holdings that minimizes such inefficiency. Our analysis shows that to reduce inefficiencies, portfolio holdings should deviate more from a full diversification strategy if there is little heterogeneity in banks’ systemic significance.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2172

Network Inspection for Detecting Strategic Attacks

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Mathieu Dahan （Georgia Institute of Technology）

Lina Sela （The University of Texas at Austin）

Saurabh Amin （Massachusetts Institute of Technology）

Abstract

This article studies a problem of strategic network inspection, in which a defender (agency) is tasked with detecting the presence of multiple attacks in the network. An inspection strategy entails monitoring the network components, possibly in a randomized manner, using a given number of detectors. We formulate the network inspection problem (P) as a large-scale bilevel optimization problem, in which the defender seeks to determine an inspection strategy with minimum number of detectors that ensures a target expected detection rate under worst-case attacks. We show that optimal solutions of (P) can be obtained from the equilibria of a large-scale zero-sum game. Our equilibrium analysis involves both game-theoretic and combinatorial arguments and leads to a computationally tractable approach to solve (P). First, we construct an approximate solution by using solutions of minimum set cover (MSC) and maximum set packing (MSP) problems and evaluate its detection performance. In fact, this construction generalizes some of the known results in network security games. Second, we leverage properties of the optimal detection rate to iteratively refine our MSC/MSP-based solution through a column generation procedure. Computational results on benchmark water networks demonstrate the scalability, performance, and operational feasibility of our approach. The results indicate that utilities can achieve a high level of protection in large-scale networks by strategically positioning a small number of detectors.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2180

Variable and Constant Returns-to-Scale Production Technologies with Component Processes

原刊和作者：

Operations Research 2022年 3-4月

Victor V. Podinovski （Loughborough University）

Abstract

We consider nonparametric production technologies characterized by several component production processes and allow both component-specific and shared inputs and outputs. Each process uses its specific inputs and an unknown part of the shared inputs to produce its specific outputs and an unknown part of the shared outputs. For the described setting, we develop two new models of production technologies, under the assumptions of variable and constant returns to scale (VRS and CRS). These models are based on the worst-case assumption about the allocation of the shared inputs and outputs to component processes and, therefore, do not require exact knowledge of the actual allocation. The new models are larger than the standard VRS and CRS technologies. We provide a formal axiomatic derivation of the new technologies, explore their dual interpretation, and demonstrate their usefulness in an application.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2021.2103