These papers are working drafts of research which often appear in final form in academic journals. The published versions may differ from the working versions provided here.
SSRN Research Paper Series
The Social Science Research Network’s Research Paper Series includes working papers produced by Stanford GSB the Rock Center.
You may search for authors and topics and download copies of the work there.
Forecasting Emergency Department Wait Times
This paper proposes a Combined Method (combining fluid model estimators and statistical learning) to forecast the wait time for low-acuity patients in an Emergency Department, and describes the implementation of the…
Improving the Prediction of Emergency Department Waiting Times.
Measurement and Improvement of Social and Environmental Performance under Voluntary versus Mandatory Disclosure
Governments are beginning to mandate that firms disclose information about social and environmental impacts in their supply chains (e.g., regarding conflict minerals and greenhouse gas emissions). This paper shows that such a mandate will…
Multi-Sourcing and Miscoordination in Supply Chain Networks
This paper studies the endogenous formation of supply chain networks when procurement is subject to disruption risk. We argue that the presence of non-convexities in the chain (e.g., due to non-convex production technologies or financial…
Operationalizing Financial Covenants
We study the interplay between financial covenants and the operational decisions of a retailer that obtains financing through a secured, inventory-based lending contract. We characterize how leverage affects dynamic inventory decisions, and…
Optimization in Online Content Recommendation Services: Beyond Click-Through Rates
A new class of online services allows internet media sites to direct users from articles they are currently reading to other content they may be interested in. This process creates a “browsing path” along which there is potential for repeated…
Generating Random Graphs without Short Cycles - Submitted 2013
Random graph generation is an important tool for studying large complex networks and recently has been extensively used by biologists, computer scientists, economists, electrical engineers, and mathematical sociologists. Despite many remarkable…
Non-stationary Stochastic Optimization
We consider a non-stationary variant of a sequential stochastic optimization problem, where the underlying cost functions may change along the horizon. We propose a measure, termed variation budget, that controls the extent of said change,…
Environmental Performance under Voluntary versus Mandatory Disclosure
Governments are beginning to mandate that firms disclose information about social and environmental impacts in their supply chains (e.g., regarding conflict minerals and greenhouse gas emissions). This paper shows…
Strategic Dynamics: Three Key Themes
We study the evolution of industries in terms of three interrelated key themes that together form an analytical lens. The first-theme strategy and strategic dynamics raises the question of how companies can gain, sustain, or regain profitable…
Variability in Emissions Cost: Implications for Facility Location, Production and Trade.
We incorporate a stochastic cost for emissions into Venables’ widely-used model of international trade for a single product. Region 1 has climate policy and Region 2 does not. Each region has a distinct variable cost…
Asymptotically Optimal Control for an Assemble-to-Order System with Capacitated Component Production and Fixed Transport Costs
Consider a production system which rapidly assembles many different products from inventories of modular components. Customer orders for each product arrive according to a renewal process with known rate and variance. Orders are lost if not…
Optimal Control of High-Volume Assemble-to-Order Systems
We consider an assemble-to-order system with a high volume of prospective customers arriving per unit time. Our objective is to maximize expected infinite horizon discounted profit by choosing product prices, component production capacities, and…
Optimal Control of High-Volume Assemble-to-Order Systems with Delay Constraints
We consider an assemble-to-order system with a high volume of prospective customers arriving per unit time. A companion paper established that with optimal product prices, component production capacity, and sequencing of orders for assembly, the…
Implications of Breach Remedy and Renegotiation for Design of Supply Contracts
A manufacturer writes supply contracts with N buyers. Then, the buyers invest in innovation, and the manufacturer builds capacity. Finally, demand is realized, and the firms renegotiate the supply contracts to achieve an efficient allocation of…
Implications of Renegotiation for Optimal Contract Flexibility and Investment
After entering into supply contracts, firms often later renegotiate the terms of those contracts. For example, firms that obtain market demand information after signing supply contracts may benefit by renegotiating the contracts to allow buyers…
Partnership in a Dynamic Production System
This paper considers two firms that engage in joint production. The prospect of repeated interaction introduces dynamics in that actions that firms take today influence the costliness and effectiveness of actions in the future. Repeated…
Self-Interested Routing in Queueing Networks
We study self-interested routing in stochastic networks, taking into account the discrete stochastic dynamics of such networks. We analyze a two station multiclass queueing network in which the system manager chooses the scheduling rule used, and…
Higher Supply Chain Security with Lower Cost: Lessons from Total Quality Management
Supply chain security has become a major concern to the private and public sector, after the disastrous event of September 11, 2001. Prior to September 11, 2001, supply chain security concerns were related to controlling theft and reducing…
When Do Employees Become Entrepreneurs?
Many new firms are started by entrepreneurs who got the idea while working for their previous employer. Sometimes employers also agree to develop their employees’ ideas internally. This paper develops a multi-task incentives model to analyze…