Doctoral Fellows

"Assessing External Validity in Randomized Experiments Using Overlap"
Ariel Boyarsky
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations 
Advisor: Hongseok Namkoong
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"Beyond the Aggregate: The Heterogeneous Effects of FX Shocks"
Amanda Dos Santos
Division: Finance
Advisor: Jesse Schreger

"Fair Fares for Vehicle Sharing Systems"
Hyemi Kim
Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
Advisor: Adam Elmachtoub

"Data-driven Algorithms for Matching Platforms"
Akshit Kumar
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations 
Advisors: Omar Besbes and Yash Kanoria

"Stars in the Text: The Impact of Review Discrepancies on Sales" 
Lan Luo
Division: Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer

"Unions and Technology Adoption" 
Dafne Murillo
Division: Economics
Advisors: Andrea Prat and Eric Verhoogen 

"Examining the Dual Role of Access to Business Advice and Social Capital: When does Advice help Small Business Development?" 
Inara Tareque
Division: Management
Advisor: Dan Wang

"The Real Influencers: Modeling Relationship Deaths in Social Networks" 
Xinyu Wei
Division: Marketing
Advisor: Asim Ansari

"Disclosure Regulation, Competition, and Innovation" 
Li Yang
Division: Accounting
Advisors: Tim Baldenius and Matthias Breur

"Who Ate the Lunch? Peer Networks for Customer Support and Quality Management"
Chenkai Yu
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisor: Hongyao Ma

"The Quality vs. Quantity Trade-off in Data-Driven Contextual Decision-Making: Exact Analysis under Newsvendor Loss" 

Omar Mouchtaki
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations 
Advisors: Omar Besbes and William Ma

"Dynamic Match-making on Gaming Platforms" 

Yuanling (Judy) Gan
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations 
Advisors: Yash Kanoria and William Ma

"Dynamic Learning in Large Matching Markets" 

Anand Kalvit
Division: Decision, Risk, and Operations 
Advisor: Assaf Zeevi

"The Impact of Audited Financial Statements on Local Governments: Evidence from US School Districts" 

Qingkai Dong
Division: Accounting
Advisor: Kim Sehwa

"A Recipe for Creative Recipes: An Ingredient Embedding Approach" 

Sibel Sozuer
Division: Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer

"What Makes For A Good Thumbnail? Video Content Summarization Into A Single Image" 

Jasmine Yang
Division: Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer

"Bankruptcy Lawyers and Post-Bankruptcy Credit Recovery Outcomes" 

Brian Lee
Division: Finance
Advisor: Daniel Wolfenzon

"Contextual Inverse Optimization with Applications in Revealed Preferences"

Yuri Resende Fonseca
Division: Decision, Risk and Operations 
Advisors: Omar Besbes, Ilan Lobel (NYU)

"How personalized digital learning can make up for deficiencies in mentor networks" 
Brandon Freiberg 
Division: Management 
Advisor: Bruce Kogut

"Municipal Financial Distress and Migration" 
Oliver Giesecke 
Division: Finance 
Advisors: Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh

"The Design and Adoption of Blockchain-Based Decentralized Exchanges" 
Ruizhe Jia 
Division: IEOR, Columbia Engineering 
Advisor: Agostino Capponi

"The Unintended Consequence of Financial Sanctions" 
Ritt Keerati 
Division: Finance 
Advisor: Jesse Schreger

"In the Era of Big Data: Consumer Privacy Protection and Firm Dynamics" 
Junjun Quan 
Division: Finance 
Advisor: Wei Jiang

"Optimal Pricing with a Single Point" 
Student: Achraf Bahamou
Advisor: Omar Besbes

"The Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Emotion and Cognition in Entrepreneurial Ventures" 
Student: Sophie Cho 
Advisor: Paul Ingram

"Prediction-Driven Surge Planning with Application in the Emergency Department" 
Student: Yue Hu
Advisor: Carri Chan, Jing Dong

"The Value of Consumer Flexibility in Scheduled Service Systems" 
Student: Xiao Lei
Advisor: Adam Elmachtoub

"Listening in on Call Center Conversations: Analyzing the Dynamics and Consequences of Customer Service Interactions" 
Student: Elliott Shin Oblander 
Advisor: Oded Netzer

"How Does Unusual News Shape Financial Market?" 
Student: Jimmy Qin 
Advisor: Paul Glasserman, Harry Mamaysky

"Foreign Currency and Firm’s Operating Decisions: The Role of Accounting-Based Performance Measures in Executive Compensation" 
Student: Kunjue Wang 
Advisor: Shivaram Rajgopal

"Can AI and Humans Work Together? Evidence from Debt Collectors"
Student: Daheng Wang 
Advisor: Wei Jiang

"Optimal and Robust approaches to using Machine Learning models for Hospital Management"
Student: Julien Grand-Clement 
Advisors: Carri Chan, Vineet Goyal

"A Data Analytics Approach to Real-time Management of Diabetes: Insulin Diffusion Solution for Type 1 Diabetic Patients" 
Student: Sharon Junwei Huang 
Advisor: Assaf Zeevi

"Do passive investments crowd out active investments and how are active investors coping?" 
Student: Yiran Kang
Advisor: Shivaram Rajgopal

"Why, when, and how variability in emotion expression enhances perceptions of authenticity and leadership" 
Student: Zaijia Liu 
Advisor: Michael Slepian

"Technological Proximity and Distance in the M&A Market"
Student: Danqing Mei 
Advisor: Wei Jiang

"Unbundling and Information Production: the Impact of MiFID II" 
Students: Lira Mota and Yifeng Guo 
Advisor: Laura Veldkamp

"Improving the Expected Improvement Algorithm at Scale" 
Student: Chao Qin 
Advisor: Daniel Russo

"Understanding intraday correlation with high-frequency data: Estimation and application" 
Student: Yiwen Shen 
Advisor: Paul Glasserman

"Crowdsourcing to Uncover Media Bias and Diversity" 
Student: Yu Ding 
Advisor: Gita Johar

“Creating Opportunity for High-Skill Digital Work in Developing Countries”
Student: Natalie Carlson, Management
Advisor: Bruce Kogut

“Spatial Capacity Planning”
Student: Francisco Castro, Decision Risk and Operations
Advisor: Omar Besbes

“Credit Disruptions and Product Market Strategy”
Student: Poorya Kabir, Finance and Economics
Advisor: Xavier Giroud

“Recommendation with Linguistic Style Matching”
Student: Alain Lemaire, Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer

“Security Analytics: Spatio-Temporal Anomaly Detection and Crowd Counting”
Student: Min-hwan Oh, IEOR
Advisor: Garud Iyengar

“Near-Optimal Control of a Ride-Hailing Platform via Mirror Backpressure”
Student: Pengyu Qian, Decision, Risk and Operations
Advisor: Yash Kanoria

“Measuring the Impact of Stress Test Announcements on the Options Market”
Student: Gowtham Tangirala, Risk, and Operations
Advisors: Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi

“Risk Migration from Banking to Other Industries after Stringent Bank Regulation: Evidence from the Dodd-Frank Act”
Student: Jing Wen, Accounting
Advisor: Urooj Khan

“Auctions in the Online Advertising Chain: Coordinated Versus Independent Campaigns”
Student: Amine Allouah, Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisor: Omar Besbes

“Consumption and Design of Music Albums and Personalized”
Student: Khaled Boughanmi, Marketing
Advisors: Rajeev Kohli, Asim Ansari, and Kamel Jedidi

“Mobile Trading, Financial Attention, and Financial Fragility”
Student: Xiao Cen, Finance and Economics
Advisor: Wei Jiang

“Customer Preference and Station Network in the London Bike Share System”
Student: Pu He, Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisor: Fanyin Zheng

“Motivated to Break or to Build: Entrepreneurial Identities Predict Resource Acquisition & Retention”
Student: Dana Kanze, Management
Advisors: Damon Phillips and Sheena Iyengar

“Storytelling in Social Exchange: The Impact of Accounts and the Role of Identity in Negotiations and Entrepreneurship”
Student: Alice Lee, Management
Advisors: Daniel Ames and Adam Galinsky

“Evolution of Online reviews”
Student: Fei Long, Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisor: Kinshuk Jerath

“Ad Analytics at MediaMath: A Joint Framework for Market Segmentation and Bid Pricing”
Student: Ryan McNellis, IEOR
Advisor: Adam Elmachtoub

“Optimization-based analysis of a game-theoretic model with applications to cybersecurity and adaptive machine learning”
Student: Nouri Sakr, IEOR
Advisors: Cliff Stein

“Accounting division: Passive Investors, Patient Capital”
Student: Yuan Zou, Accounting
Advisors: Fabrizio Ferri

“Mixed Membership: Outcome-Oriented Segmentation”
Student: Ryan Dew, Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer

“Falling Out of Passion: An Investigation of the Negative Consequences of the Pursuit of Passion”
Student: Jon Jachimowicz, Management
Advisor: Adam Galinsky

“Accounting for Intangibles, Access to Finance and Firm Innovation”
Student: Nani Li, Accounting
Advisor: Fabrizio Ferri

“The Impact of Platform Control Capabilities on the Performance of Rideshare Networks”
Student: Zhe Liu, Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisor: Costis Maglaras

“Do Multicultural Experiences Enhance Leadership Effectiveness?: Evidence from the English Premier League'”
Student: Jackson Lu, Management
Advisor: Adam Galinsky

“Personal Relations in Loan Renegotiation: Evidence from Corporate Loans”
Student: Melina Papoutsi, Finance and Economics
Advisor: Daniel Wolfenzon

“Online Demand Learning in Feature Based Assortment Planning”
Student: Vashist Avadhanula, Decision, Risk, and Operations
Advisors: Shipra Agrawal, Vineet Goyal, and Assaf Zeevi

“Dynamic Pricing and Revenue Management for Rotable Spare Parts at Dassault Falcon”
Student: Yunjie Sun, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
Advisor: Adam Elmachtoub

“What Motivates Consumers to Participate in the Sharing Economy?”
Student: Chung Jaeyeon, Marketing
Advisor: Jaeyeon Chung
Link to Video

“A Template Matching Approach to Comparing Hospital Quality in an Integrated Health Care System”
Student: Wenqi Hu, DRO
Advisors: Carri Chan and Jose Zubizarreta
Link to Video

“A Salesperson vs. A Model of the Salesperson: A B2B Pricing Application”
Student: Yael Karlinsky, Marketing
Advisor: Oded Netzer
Link to Video

“Dual Sourcing Strategy: Onshore and Offshore Procurement”
Student: Lijian Lu (&Zhe Liu), DRO
Advisor: Awi Federgruen
Link to Video

“Promoting Gender Equality through Conversations about Gender: Gender-Blindness Amongst Male Executives”
Student: Ashley Martin, Management
Advisor: Kathy Philips
Link to Video

“Firm-Level Pay Disparity: Opening Doors or Building Walls?”
Student: Ethan Rouen, Accounting
Advisor: Trevor Harris
Link to Video

“Outmaneuvering Governments in Emerging Markets”
Student: Pablo Slutzky, Finance and Economics
Advisor: Daniel Wolfenzon
Link to Video

“Oil Futures Price, Inventory, and the Learning of Emerging Markets Growth”
Student: Li Ye, Finance and Economics
Advisor: Michael Johannes
Link to Video
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“Optimizing Louis Vuitton’s Distributed Supply Chain”
Student: Daniel Guetta, Decision, Risk & Operations
Advisors Awi Federgruen

“The Household Financial Accelerator Mechanism”
Student: Arpit Gupta, Finance and Economics Division
Advisor: Tomas Piskorski

“Revenue Maximization for Cloud Computing Services”
Student: Cinar Kilcioglu, Decision, Risk & Operations
Advisor: Costis Maglaras

“The Effectiveness of Point-Based Reward Programs and Targeted Marketing”
Student: Jia Liu, Marketing Division
Advisors: Asim Ansari and Leonard Lee

“Decision Architecture: Exploration of Patients-Physician Communication About Hospice Care”
Student: Ilona Fridman, Management Division
Advisors: Sheena Iyengar and Tory Higgins

“Investor Forecasting and Cognitive hierarchy: A Field Experiment”
Student: Matt Stephenson, Management Division
Advisor: Stephan Meier

Sponsored Projects 2013

“Load forecasting and shed detection in demand response programs”

The US electrical system is still substantially based on centralized generation using transmission and distribution lines to bring power to the end loads. With the increasing integration of intermittent and unreliable renewable generation the grid infrastructure will need to be substantially altered in order to maintain grid stability and reliability. Demand Response (DR) is being proposed as a viable resource to meet growing transmission and distribution needs in the US. In this project, Carlos Abad, a PhD candidate in the IEOR, advised by Garud Iyengar, Professor, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, examines the causal effects of bank account ownership on a representative sample of the American urban poor. Using a unique dataset and exploiting quasi-random variation in the likelihood of account opening, he finds a significant reduction in debt delinquency and higher likelihood of credit score improvement among previously unbanked individuals, and provides evidence regarding the mechanisms behind these results.

“Procyclical Credit Rating Policy”

Because credit ratings convey pricing-relevant information, agencies’ rating policies may play an important role in the economy. If the rating standard changes in a procyclical fashion with respect to the economic regime, it may deliver an overly optimistic signal during expansions and an overly pessimistic one during recessions. Regulators and media criticize that the recent financial crisis was partly caused by the inflated credit rating for structured finance. On the opposite end of things, the rating of the Euro-zone sovereign bonds were competitively downgraded during the recent European crisis. Several theoretical papers discuss how credit rating agencies (“CRAs”) may have an incentive to implement procyclical rating policies. In this paper, Jun Kyung Auh (2014), a PhD candidate in the Finance and Economics Division, advised byPatrick Bolton, Professor, Columbia Business School, examines the ways in which such rating policy prevails in the corporate bond market. He provides a quantitative estimates of procyclical bias and an economic implication due to such policy.

“Estimating Out-of-Stock Status Using Only Point-of-Sale Transaction Data”

Accurate stock tracking is a crucial capability in inventory management. In many retail settings, however, stock information is very inaccurate or even nonexistent; this is particularly common among small retailers carrying a large number of products, and having scarce resources. In most cases, collecting sales transaction data is a substantially simpler task. The question, then, is whether it is possible to use only point of sale (POS) data to estimate and predict stock levels. In this paper, Juan Chaneton (2015), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations Division , advised by Garrett van Ryzin, Professor, Columbia Business School, will develop and test an estimation methodology to perform this task.

“Shopping at the Stadium: Does the Game Affect What People Purchase?”

Concessions are a huge revenue source for stadium owners. Further, concessions are becoming an increasingly important component of a fan’s stadium experience. Beyond the tradition concessions (e.g., hot dogs and domestic beer), many new stadiums feature critically acclaimed food vendors. For example, Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, contains an outpost of the immensely popular Shake Shack franchise. While the variety and quality of stadium concessions have grown, surprisingly little research has looked at fans consumption choices during live events. In this project, the author explores the manner in which consumers augment their stadium experience with the purchase of concessions. In this paper, Nicholas Reinholtz (2014), a PhD candidate in the Marketing Division , advised by Oded Netzer , Professor, Columbia Business School, will explore the relationship between features of the live event and the consumption behavior of individual consumers.

“Promoting Competition in Public Procurement”

In this research, Daniela Saban (2015), PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, advised by Gabriel Weintraub, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, aims to build a bridge between the practical problems Chile-Compra (the national government procurement agency of Chile) faces with the insight that rigorous research can provide. In particular, it analyzes and designs sourcing strategies to promote competition between suppliers. The key motivation for promoting competition is two-fold: first, it ensures that the government obtains a richer supplier base, potentially enhancing cost efficiency; second, increasing competition between suppliers may lead to a lower procurement cost.

Sponsored Projects 2012
 

“The Effects of Access to Mainstream Financial Services on the American Poor: Evidence from Data on Recipients of Financial Education”

A significant fraction of low-income households in the US operates outside of the financial mainstream, relying on expensive “alternative financial services” for carrying out basic transactions and for borrowing, and lacking adequate mechanisms for saving. In this paper, Assaf Shtauber (2014), a PhD candidate in the Finance and Economics Division, advised by Gur Huberman, Professor, Columbia Business School, examines the causal effects of bank account ownership on a representative sample of the American urban poor. Using a unique dataset and exploiting quasi-random variation in the likelihood of account opening, he finds a significant reduction in debt delinquency and higher likelihood of credit score improvement among previously unbanked individuals, and provides evidence regarding the mechanisms behind these results.

“Pricing Managed Lanes”

A managed lane is loosely defined as a separated highway lane operated with active flow management. The entity responsible from operating the lane manages the flow to the lane by levying tolls or setting regulations, such as requiring a minimum number of passengers in the vehicle. Managed lanes with tolls are becoming an important way to finance new public works projects such as highway expansions or other transportation related programs. Caner Gocmen (2013), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, advised by Robert Phillips, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School, investigates the optimal operating policies for managed lanes with tolls. For different operating environments, such as constant or time-varying demand, they identify some properties of the revenue maximizing policy.

“Organizational Efficiency and Hierarchical Functioning Following the Implementation of a Mobility Initiative”

In this project, Eric Anicich (2016), a PhD student in the Management division, advised by Adam Galinsky, Professor at Columbia Business School, highlight the importance of making a theoretical distinction between power and status and move beyond person-based, compositional explanations for relationship conflict in the workplace. Using archival data and direct surveys of senior level managers in a federal agency, they found that supervisors experienced higher levels of relationship conflict when their roles provided power without status. This intriguing finding occurred in the context of a mobility initiative within the organization and spurred further empirical investigation. Findings from several follow-up studies enhance current understanding of social structure, workplace conflict, and social relations by integrating social psychological and organizational theories of power, status, and conflict.

“Consequences of New Channel Adoption: Addressing the Self-Selection Problem”

According to the Direct Marketing Association’s report, 40 percent of retailers sell through three or more channels, for example, catalogs, Internet stores, apps for smart phones, or brick-and-mortar stores. In this paper, Hasan Tolga Bilgicer (2013), a PhD student in theMarketing division in collaboration with Don Lehmann, Professor at Columbia Business School, examine what happens after companies add new channels. They find that if the new channel has similar attributes to company’s existing channel, the new channel steals sales from the incumbent channel (cannibalization effect). If the new channel offers new services that complement the incumbent channel, such as, easing the product return processes, or providing after sales service, the new channel augments the sales at the existing channel (synergy effect).

“Recommending Content in a Changing World: What is still news?”

A new class of online services allows publishers to direct readers to other web-based content they may be interested in. Yoni Gur (2014), PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, advised by Omar Besbes, Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School, and Assaf Zeevi, Professor and Vice Dean for Research at Columbia Business School, study this dynamic recommendation problem, focusing on challenges introduced by the massive stream of new content and the heterogeneous shelf-life of articles. With the objective of quantifying the aging of content in the presence of rapidly evolving features, they attempt to identify from different data sources the key underlying factors to track, and how one should do so. This work is based on a collaboration with a leading provider of online content recommendations.

“The Effect of Dynamics Incentives on Borrowers' Repayment Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment at a Department Store”

Do borrowers respond to dynamic incentives? In this work, Andres Liberman (2013), PhD candidate in the Finance and Economics Division, advised by Daniel Paravisini, Professor at London School of Economics, design and apply a field experiment in a large department store in Chile to study the effect of dynamic incentives on the take-up and performance of unsecured consumer loans. The store’s baseline credit contract features a fixed credit line. They offer a randomly selected group of borrowers (treated group) a contract that specifies an increasing path for credit lines. They further subdivide and assign the store’s baseline contract to a randomly selected subgroup within the treated group. Finally, a control group is offered and assigned the baseline contract. This allows them to separately identify the selection and incentive effects of the contract that features explicit dynamic incentives on debt repayment. They conclude by comparing the importance of dynamic incentives relative to pricing, reputation, and other incentives for unsecured borrowers to repay their debt.

“Dynamic Matching in Residential Real Estate Markets”

Hua Zheng (2014), PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, in collaboration with Costis Maglaras, Professor at Columbia Business School, and Ciamac Moallemi, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, study the residential real estate markets as dynamic matching systems with an emphasis on their microstructure. The residential units are heterogeneous with respect to their attributes such as location and size, while the agents are also characterized by their idiosyncratic preference, delay tolerance, and other financial considerations. They study the dynamics of this market and characterize its steady-state behavior, such as market depth and price dispersion.

Sponsored Projects 2011
 

“Analyzing Agent Productivity in Service Delivery Systems”

The goal of this research is to analyze factors that drive agent productivity in service delivery systems and utilize this information to improve efficiency in the allocation of work. More specifically, Yina Lu (2013), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, advised by Marcelo Olivares, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, wants to analyze how factors such as workload, multi-tasking, agent skill level, and skill-and-job matching would affect agents’ productivity using primary objective data, and based on this design a more efficient job routing scheme.

“Competition and Market Structure in Online Display Advertising with Ad Exchange”

Internet Display Advertising has become a multi-billion dollar industry. While in the past, advertisers would purchase display ad placements by negotiating long term contracts directly with publishers, the emergence of Ad Exchanges in recent years has significantly altered the industry landscape. Advertisers may now purchase ad placements in real-time based on specific viewer information. In this work, Santiago Balseiro (2013), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, advised by Omar Besbes, Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School, and Gabriel Y. Weintraub, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, intend to study various aspects associated with Ad Exchanges. In particular, they study how advertisers should run a campaign in such an exchange and the impact of the indirect competition among advertisers, in addition to investigating the type of mechanisms that are best suited to match advertisers with viewers.

“Endogeneity and Price Sensitivity in Customized Pricing”

Endogeneity occurs in customized pricing when a seller uses unrecorded customer characteristics that are correlated with price-sensitivity in setting the price. Endogeneity can lead traditional regression approaches to under-estimate price elasticity. In this study, Ahmet Serdar Simsek (2013), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, working with Robert L. Phillips, Professor of Professional Practice, and Garrett van Ryzin, Paul M. Montrone Professor of Private Enterprise, and Chair of Decision, Risk, and Operations division, use two sources of data from auto loan pricing: one from an on-line lender and one from an indirect lender to test for endogeneity. They present their results as well as recommendations for how to detect and control for endogeneity in the estimation process.

“Enhancing Healthcare OM Research via Collaboration with Kaiser Permanente”

The objective of this project is to learn how to use available quantitative tools in the most effective way to improve capacity planning and resource allocation in hospitals. Hailey Song-Hee Kim (2013), a PhD candidate in the Industrial Engineering & Operations Research division, working with Carri W. Chan, Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School, and Marcelo Olivares, are studying hospital settings and operations in order to correctly structure the models, estimate the parameters, and develop performance objectives and to find ideas for potential research questions. Additionally, there are two specific questions they are trying to answer: (1) examining whether the occupancy levels of the available recovery units with different levels of care play a role in deciding what type of recovery unit a patient is routed to after a surgery or a visit to ER and if so, how this routing pattern further affects patient outcomes and (2) developing an optimal policy for giving a preventative therapy which is done in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to patients with a particular disease given the prevalent shortages of ICU beds in hospitals.

“Portfolio Execution with Short-Term Predictability”

In this project, Mehmet Saglam (2013), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operation division, advised by Ciamac C. Moallemi, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, would like to test whether linear decision rules can be tractable in complex and realistic portfolio execution problems. If there exists any performance gain, they would like to quantify the improvement over current algorithmic practices used in the industry. In a recent working paper, they lay out the theoretical background of using linear decision rules in large class of dynamic portfolio choice problems and in this project, they would like to apply this methodology to optimal portfolio execution problems with realistic parameters. Model parameters will be estimated from real data and using the calibrated model they will compute the best linear execution policy and compare its performance to those of current algorithms used in the industry.

“Structural Estimation of a Large-Scale Procurement Combinatorial Auction: The Chilean School-meal Project”

Combinatorial auctions are particularly useful in procurement when items exhibit cost synergies. However, allowing bidders to bundle items that do not exhibit synergies may hurt the efficiency of the allocation. In this study, Sang Won Kim (2012), a PhD candidate in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division, working with Marcelo Olivares and Gabriel Y. Weintraub, develop a structural estimation method to uncover the bidders’ cost structure of a large-scale combinatorial auction; the Chilean auction for school meals. Based on these estimates they analyze and suggest important improvements to the auction design.