Price dispersion across online platforms: Evidence from hotel room prices in London (UK)

This paper studies the widespread price dispersion of homogeneous products across different online platforms, even when consumers can easily access price information from comparison websites. We collect data for the 200 most popular hotels in London (UK) and document that prices vary widely across booking sites while making reservations for a hotel room. Additionally, we find that prices listed across different platforms tend to converge as the booking date gets closer to the date of stay. However, the price dispersion persists until the date of stay, implying that the "law of one price" does not hold. We present a simple theoretical model to explain this and show that in the presence of aggregate demand uncertainty and capacity constraints, price dispersion could exist even when products are homogeneous, consumers are homogeneous, all agents have perfect information about the market structure, and consumers face no search costs to acquire information about the products. Our theoretical intuition and robust empirical evidence provide additional insights into price dispersion across online platforms in different institutional settings. Our study complements the existing literature that relies on consumer search costs to explain the price dispersion phenomenon.Comment: Accepted for publication in Applied Economic

LOGISTICS IN CONTESTED ENVIRONMENTS

This report examines the transport and delivery of logistics in contested environments within the context of great-power competition (GPC). Across the Department of Defense (DOD), it is believed that GPC will strain our current supply lines beyond their capacity to maintain required warfighting capability. Current DOD efforts are underway to determine an appropriate range of platforms, platform quantities, and delivery tactics to meet the projected logistics demand in future conflicts. This report explores the effectiveness of various platforms and delivery methods through analysis in developed survivability, circulation, and network optimization models. Among other factors, platforms are discriminated by their radar cross-section (RCS), noise level, speed, cargo capacity, and self-defense capability. To maximize supply delivered and minimize the cost of losses, the results of this analysis indicate preference for utilization of well-defended convoys on supply routes where bulk supply is appropriate and smaller, and widely dispersed assets on shorter, more contested routes with less demand. Sensitivity analysis on these results indicates system survivability can be improved by applying RCS and noise-reduction measures to logistics assets.Director, Warfare Integration (OPNAV N9I)Major, Israel Defence ForcesCivilian, Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd, SingaporeCommander, Republic of Singapore NavyCommander, United States NavyCaptain, Singapore ArmyLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyMajor, Republic of Singapore Air ForceCaptain, United States Marine CorpsLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyLieutenant, United States NavyCaptain, Singapore ArmyLieutenant Junior Grade, United States NavyCaptain, Singapore ArmyLieutenant Colonel, Republic of Singapore Air ForceApproved for public release. distribution is unlimite

Autonomic virtual resource management for service hosting platforms

International audienceCloud platforms host several independent applications on a shared resource pool with the ability to allocate com- puting power to applications on a per-demand basis. The use of server virtualization techniques for such platforms provide great flexibility with the ability to consolidate sev- eral virtual machines on the same physical server, to resize a virtual machine capacity and to migrate virtual machine across physical servers. A key challenge for cloud providers is to automate the management of virtual servers while taking into account both high-level QoS requirements of hosted applications and resource management costs. This paper proposes an autonomic resource manager to con- trol the virtualized environment which decouples the provi- sioning of resources from the dynamic placement of virtual machines. This manager aims to optimize a global utility function which integrates both the degree of SLA fulfillment and the operating costs. We resort to a Constraint Pro- gramming approach to formulate and solve the optimization problem. Results obtained through simulations validate our approach

SLA-aware virtual resource management for cloud infrastructures

International audienceCloud platforms host several independent applications on a shared resource pool with the ability to allocate computing power to applications on a per-demand basis. The use of server virtualization techniques for such platforms provide great flexibility with the ability to consolidate several virtual machines on the same physical server, to resize a virtual machine capacity and to migrate virtual machine across physical servers. A key challenge for cloud providers is to automate the management of virtual servers while taking into account both high-level QoS requirements of hosted applications and resource management costs. This paper proposes an autonomic resource manager to control the virtualized environment which decouples the provisioning of resources from the dynamic placement of virtual machines. This manager aims to optimize a global utility function which integrates both the degree of SLA fulfillment and the operating costs. We resort to a Constraint Programming approach to formulate and solve the optimization problem. Results obtained through simulations validate our approach

Surge pricing on a service platform under spatial spillovers: evidence from Uber

Ride-sharing platforms employ surge pricing to match anticipated capacity spillover with demand. We develop an optimization model to characterize the relationship between surge price and spillover. We test predicted relationships using a spatial panel model on a dataset from Ubers operation. Results reveal that Ubers pricing accounts for both capacity and price spillover. There is a debate in the management community on the ecacy of labor welfare mechanisms associated with shared capacity. We conduct counterfactual analysis to provide guidance in regards to the debate, for managing congestion, while accounting for consumer and labor welfare through this online platform.First author draf

Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Technical Exchange in Eastern Africa Workshop Report

In 2005, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society published its assessment of key gaps in the use of climate information for health, agriculture, water and other sectors in countries across Africa. The results from the report were less than stellar. After an extensive review of use of climate information in the development sectors of Africa, the authors concluded that the continent suffered from “market atrophy” – the reinforcing effect of zero effective supply of climate information and zero effective demand. Twelve years later, organizations such as the IRI, CSRD, CCAFS, ICPAC, and UKMO have made enormous strides at increasing both climate information supply and demand through the implementation of climate data platforms and the organizing of capacity-building seminars. In order to capitalize on the presence of the many climate and sector experts from across the IGAD region, the organizations above held a joint event, the Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Technical Exchange workshop, in Zanzibar on August 23-25, 2017, immediately after the 47th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF47). The workshop was designed to offer potential and existing users a platform to voice their needs for the development and better use of historical, monitored and forecast information for the management of drought across climate-sensitive sectors

Social Norms as a Cost-Effective Measure of Managing Transport Demand: Evidence from an Experiment on the London Underground

In an effort to cope with increasing passenger demand on its network, Transport for London (TfL) implemented in the second half of 2017 an experiment on one of its busiest metro train platforms. The platform surface was painted to highlight the exact location of the train doors once it comes to a full stop and to direct passengers to wait in parts of the platform that would not obstruct passengers from alighting from the train and leaving the platform. We estimate the effect of this intervention to change passenger behaviour on the platform on train waiting and delay times. We use different sets of assumptions about what the counterfactual change in waiting and delay times would have been in the absence of the intervention. Depending on the assumptions, we find that the intervention has reduced train waiting times between 0 and 6.6%. We also find that this reduction came about mainly through reducing delay times of trains once they are delayed which were cut by between 4.6% and 12.6%. The reductions are not evenly distributed throughout the day, but tend to occur during peak traffic hours. The value of the implied time savings per year are £156,000 at a cost of £25,000, amounting to a return of £6 per £1 investment. If the dwell time reduction could increase train frequency on the affected line by 1 train per hour, however, then TfL could save another £3.6 million

ICT and e-learning in further education: management, learning and improvement: a report on the further education sector’s engagement with technology

The 2006 college survey data was presented in this report with a detailed analysis of the findings of the survey and issues for colleges and the sector as a whole