Working Papers

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.

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Inventory Policies for Periodic Review Systems

Evan L. Porteus
1983

This paper introduces three new methods for computing approximately optimal inventory policies for discrete time shortage cost systems. Two of the methods are shortcuts based on the method of Freeland and Porteus [1980] and one is a heuristic…

Audience Presence During Breaks in Television Programmes

Derek W. Bunn
1982

Experiments on the use of electricity data as an unobtrusive measure of household behaviour during breaks in television programmes have provided some new insights.Whilst confirming much of accepted “presence” research, there is a clear indication…

Economic Dispatch of Electric Power by Stochastic Linear Programming

Derek W. Bunn, Spiros N. Paschentis
1982

Operational improvements in the short-run scheduling of electric power generation can accrue considerable economic and fossil-fuel savings. This study has undertaken an evaluation of the worth and practicality of using “stochastic linear…

Inventory Policies for Periodic Review Systems: Supporting Details

Evan L. Porteus
1982

This paper provides details and derivations that support Porteus [1982].

Operations as Strategy: Lessons From Japan

Steven C. Wheelwright
1981

The past year has witnessed tremendous interest in Japanese management practice. Owing in part to the increasingly worldwide competitive environment, and more particularly, the survivability of certain U.S. industries (television, automobiles,…

Easily Computed Inventory Policies for Periodic Review Systems: Shortage Cost and Service Level Models

James R. Freeland, Evan L. Porteus
1979

This paper builds on prior work of the authors by developing a shortcut method for determining approximately optimal (s,S) inventory policies for use in a periodic review inventory system in which shortage costs are assessed. The method seems to…

Exact Solution of Crew Scheduling Problems Using the Set Partitioning Model: Recent Successful Applications

Roy E. Marsten, Fred Shepardson
1979

The set partitioning model of the crew rotation problem has been well known for many years. This paper focuses on recent developments that have made this model more attractive and have resulted in several successful implementations. These…

Improved Iterative Computation of the Expected Discounted Return in Markov and Semi-Markov Chains

Evan L. Porteus
1979

This paper seeks to reduce the computation needed by iterative methods to find the expected discounted return in a finite semi-Markov or Markov chain. Two new norm reducing extrapolations and a new iterative method are presented and shown to be…

A Lagrangean Relaxation Algorithm for the Two Duty Period Scheduling Problem

Fred Shepardson, Roy E. Marsten
1979

The two duty period scheduling problem is an integer programming problem with 0-1 constraint coefficients. It is recognized that the problem can be reformulated as a one duty period problem with side constraints. Since the one duty period problem…

Allocation of Managerial Effort: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Decision Strategies, Environment and Performance

James R. Freeland, Charles B. Stabell
1978

The work presented in this paper investigates behaviorally plausible rules for making decisions in complex situations. A rule is plausible if it iss consistent with assumptions concerning limits on a decision maker’s information processing…

Anticipated Information Releases Reflected in Call Option Prices

James M. Patell, Mark A. Wolfson
1978

This study captures the ex ante information content of a financial reporting event (the annual earnings announcement) by examining the behavior of call option prices on dates leading up to and passing through the disclosure date. This approach…

Comparison of a Multi-Pass Heuristic Decomposition Procedure with Other Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Procedures

Charles A. Holloway, Rosser Nelson, Vichit Suraphongchai
1978

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a heuristic procedure for resource-constrained project scheduling. The procedure is a representative of a class of multi-pass procedures based on problem decomposition and is applicable to single or…

Defining and Improving Decision Making Effectiveness

Charles B. Stabell
1978

Evaluation is seen as key in any systematic attempt to improve decision making effectiveness in unstructured tasks. Decision Support Systems (DSS) are systems designed to extend a manager’s ability to deal with the complexity of the decision…

Using Probabilistic Information in Solving Resource Allocation Problems for a Decentralized Firm

James R. Freeland, Gerhard Schiefer
1978

This paper formulates a general linear programming problem for a multidivision firm where headquarters possesses probabilistic information regarding each division’s opportunities. It is assumed that headquarters is willing to risk implementing a…

Dynamic Choice Theory and Dynamic Programming

David M. Kreps, Evan L. Porteus
1977

Finite horizon sequential decision problems with a “temporal vonNeumann-Morgenstern utility” criterion are analyzed. This criterion, as developed in [7], is a generalization of vonNeumann-Morgenstern (expected) utility of the vector of rewards,…

Heuristic Algorithms for Capital Budgeting Decisions in Multi-Division Firms

Meir J. Rosenblatt, James R. Freeland
1977

This paper presents two versions of a heuristic algorithm to solve a model of the capital budgeting problem in a multi-division firm. These algorithms allow a final allocation of the budget to projects to be found in two information exchanges…