Consumer Behavior

We consider inventory systems with several distinct items. Demands occur at constant, item specific rates. The items are interdependent because of jointly incurred fixed procurement costs: The joint cost structure reflects general economies of scale, merely assuming a monotonicity and concavity (submodularity) property. Under a power-of-two policy each item is replenished with constant reorder intervals which are power-of-two multiples of some fixed or variable base planning period.

The reorder point/reorder quantity policies, also referred to as (r, Q) policies, are widely used in industry and extensively studied in the literature. However, for a period of almost 30 years there has been no efficient algorithm for computing optimal control parameteres for such policies. In this paper, we present a surprisingly simple and efficient algorithm for the determination of an optimal (r*, Q*) policy. The computational complexity of the algorithm is linear in Q*.

Only one-fourth of U.S. families own stock. This paper examines whether the consumption of stockholders differs from the consumption of nonstockholders and, if so, whether these differences help explain the empirical failures of the consumption-based CAPM. Household panel data are used to construct time series on the consumption of each group. The results indicate that the consumption of stockholders is more volatile and more highly correlated with the excess return on the stock market.

This paper is concerned with the general dynamic lot size model, or (generalized) Wagner-Whitin model. Let n denote the number of periods into which the planning horizon is divided. We describe a simple forward algorithm which solves the general model in 0(n log n) time and 0(n) space, as opposed to the well-known shortest path algorithm advocated over the last 30 years with 0(n2) time.

In this paper we consider a class of single-server queueing systems with compound Poisson arrivals, in which, at service completion epochs, the server has the option of taking off for one or several vacations of random length. The cost structure consists of holding cost rate specified by a general non-decreasing function of the queue size, fixed costs for initiating and terminating service, and a variable operating cost incurred for each unit of time that the system is in operation.

A conceptual model is developed that describes the relationships among consumer values, utility, and ownership of durables. These relationships are tested empirically using data on a variety of discretionary durables collected from a sample of 735 adults. Results support the model structure and suggest that augmenting the List of Values (Kahle 1983) with a measure of materialism improves prediction of value-related consumer behavior.

Bernard Frieden and Lynne Sagalyn provide an in-depth analysis of public-private partnerships that have resulted in several large downtown retail redevelopment projects. These projects were dependent in part on an improvement in underlying factors such as the revitalization of the downtown office market. But, more important, these projects owe their existence to innovative entrepreneurial urban policy. This essay shows how current city policies evolved from the experience gained from redevelopment efforts launched under federal auspices.

In this paper, a new algorithm for computing optimal (s, S) policies is derived based upon a number of new properties of the infinite horizon cost function c(s, S) as well as a new upper bound for optimal order-up-to levels S* and a new lower bound for optimal reorder levels s*. The algorithm is simple and easy to understand. Its computational complexity is only 2.4 times that required to evaluate a (specific) single (s, S) policy. The algorithm applies to both periodic review and continuous review inventory systems.