Exogenous coalition formation in the e-marketplace based on geographical proximity

This paper considers a model for exogenous coalition formation in e-marketplaces. Using the informational advantage e-retailer creates coalitions of customers based on geographical proximity. Most of the literature regards this process as endogenous: a coalition leader bundles eventual purchases together in order to obtain a better bargaining position. In contrast - and in response to what is being observed in business practice - we analyse a situation in which an existing e-retailer exogenously forms customers' coalitions. Results of this study are highly encouraging. Namely, we demonstrate that even under highly imperfect warehouse management schemes leading to contagion eects, suggested combined delivery service may oer signifficant efficiency gains as well as opportunities for Pareto-improvement.Coalition formation, e-commerce, multi-agent systems, consumer satisfaction, demand planning, warehouse management.

Are neighbors welcome ? e-buyer search, price competition and coalition strategy in the Internet retailing

On étudie les forces qui régissent l'agrégation des sites Web marchands (B-to-C) en concurrence sur un marché électronique différencié, où le coût de recherche pour les consommateurs est indépendant du coût d'adaptation/transport supporté lorsque le bien trouvé ne correspond pas à leur préférence. On s'intéresse à la possibilité pour les sites Internet de se coaliser, ce qui se traduit par une réduction du coût de recherche pour trouver d'autres sites à l'intérieur de la coalition. On effectue la statique comparative des structures de coalitions (en fonction du degré de différenciation de ses partenaires) lorsque les sites se font une concurrence en prix. On montre qu'un site préfère se coaliser avec un partenaire fortement différencié et fixe dans ce cas un prix unique plus bas.En vendant au détail;Coûts de recherche;Coalition

The American Assembly: Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property

Examines intellectual property issues as the arts sector joins other sectors in the race to deal with an increasingly information-driven economy

Coalition Formation and Combinatorial Auctions; Applications to Self-organization and Self-management in Utility Computing

In this paper we propose a two-stage protocol for resource management in a hierarchically organized cloud. The first stage exploits spatial locality for the formation of coalitions of supply agents; the second stage, a combinatorial auction, is based on a modified proxy-based clock algorithm and has two phases, a clock phase and a proxy phase. The clock phase supports price discovery; in the second phase a proxy conducts multiple rounds of a combinatorial auction for the package of services requested by each client. The protocol strikes a balance between low-cost services for cloud clients and a decent profit for the service providers. We also report the results of an empirical investigation of the combinatorial auction stage of the protocol.Comment: 14 page

A hybrid algorithm for coalition structure generation

The current state-of-the-art algorithm for optimal coalition structure generation is IDP-IP—an algorithm that combines IDP (a dynamic programming algorithm due to Rahwan and Jennings, 2008b) with IP (a tree-search algorithm due to Rahwan et al., 2009). In this paper we analyse IDP-IP, highlight its limitations, and then develop a new approach for combining IDP with IP that overcomes these limitations

Are neighbors welcome ? e-buyer search, price competition and coalition strategy in the Internet retailing

We study the forces that drive the phenomenon of aggregation of merchant Web sites (B-to-C) competing in a differentiated electronic market, where the search cost for the consumers is independent from the adaptation/transportation cost they incur when the good they find does not match with their preference. We focus on the possibility for Internet sites to coalesce, which results in a reduction of the search cost to find other sites within the coalition. We do the static comparative of coalition structures (depending on whether there is little or high differentiation between partners), when firms compete in price. We find that firms prefer to coalesce with highly differentiated partners, and set in this case lower prices.On étudie les forces qui régissent l'agrégation des sites Web marchands (B-to-C) en concurrence sur un marché électronique différencié, où le coût de recherche pour les consommateurs est indépendant du coût d'adaptation/transport supporté lorsque le bien trouvé ne correspond pas à leur préférence. On s'intéresse à la possibilité pour les sites Internet de se coaliser, ce qui se traduit par une réduction du coût de recherche pour trouver d'autres sites à l'intérieur de la coalition. On effectue la statique comparative des structures de coalitions (en fonction du degré de différenciation de ses partenaires) lorsque les sites se font une concurrence en prix. On montre qu'un site préfère se coaliser avec un partenaire fortement différencié et fixe dans ce cas un prix unique plus bas