Revenue management in resource exchange seller alliances

The purpose of this paper is to obtain insight into conditions under which a resource exchange alliance can provide greater profit than the setting without an alliance, and to propose a model to design a resource exchange alliance. We first consider a setting in which customers want a combined product assembled from products sold by different sellers. We show that without an alliance the sellers will tend to price their products too high and sell too little, thereby foregoing potential profit, especially when capacity is large. This provides an economic motivation for interest in alliances, because the hope may be that some of the foregone profit may be captured under an alliance. We then consider a resource exchange alliance, including the effect of the alliance on competition among alliance members. We show that the foregone profit may indeed be captured under such an alliance. The problem of determining the optimal amounts of resources to exchange is formulated as a stochastic mathematical program with equilibrium constraints. We show how to determine whether there exists a unique equilibrium after resource exchange, how to compute the equilibrium, and how to compute the optimal resource exchange.Alliance, resource exchange, pricing, revenue management, stochastic mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints, non-cooperative game

Normal versus Noncentral Chi-square Asymptotics of Misspecified Models

The noncentral chi-square approximation of the distribution of the likelihood ratio (LR) test statistic is a critical part of the methodology in structural equations modeling (SEM). Recently, it was argued by some authors that in certain situations normal distributions may give a better approximation of the distribution of the LR test statistic. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the validity of employing these distributions in practice. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that the noncentral chi-square distribution describes behavior of the LR test statistic well under small, moderate and even severe misspecifications regardless of the sample size (as long as it is sufficiently large), while the normal distribution, with a bias correction, gives a slightly better approximation for extremely severe misspecifications. However, neither the noncentral chi-square distribution nor the theoretical normal distributions give a reasonable approximation of the LR test statistics under extremely severe misspecifications. Of course, extremely misspecified models are not of much practical interest

Conditional Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk: Estimation and Asymptotics

We discuss linear regression approaches to conditional Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk (Conditional Value-at-Risk, Expected Shortfall) risk measures. Two estimation procedures are considered for each conditional risk measure, one is direct and the other is based on residual analysis of the standard least squares method. Large sample statistical inference of the estimators obtained is derived. Furthermore, finite sample properties of the proposed estimators are investigated and compared with theoretical derivations in an extensive Monte Carlo study. Empirical results on the real-data (different financial asset classes) are also provided to illustrate the performance of the estimators

Conditional Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk: Estimation and Asymptotics

We discuss linear regression approaches to conditional Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk (Conditional Value-at-Risk, Expected Shortfall) risk measures. Two estimation procedures are considered for each conditional risk measure, one is direct and the other is based on residual analysis of the standard least squares method. Large sample statistical inference of the estimators obtained is derived. Furthermore, finite sample properties of the proposed estimators are investigated and compared with theoretical derivations in an extensive Monte Carlo study. Empirical results on the real-data (different financial asset classes) are also provided to illustrate the performance of the estimators

Conditional Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk: Estimation and Asymptotics

We discuss linear regression approaches to estimation of law invariant conditional risk measures. Two estimation procedures are considered and compared; one is based on residual analysis of the standard least squares method and the other is in the spirit of the M-estimation approach used in robust statistics. In particular, Value-at-Risk and Average Value-at-Risk measures are discussed in details. Large sample statistical inference of the estimators is derived. Furthermore, finite sample properties of the proposed estimators are investigated and compared with theoretical derivations in an extensive Monte Carlo study. Empirical results on the real-data (different financial asset classes) are also provided to illustrate the performance of the estimators

Resource Exchange Seller Alliances

Many carriers, such as airlines and ocean carriers, collaborate through the formation of alliances. The detailed alliance design is clearly important for both the stability of the alliance and profitability of the alliance members. This work is motivated by a real-life liner shipping "resource exchange alliance" agreement design. We provide an economic motivation for interest in resource exchange alliances and propose a model and method to design a resource exchange alliance. The model takes into account how the alliance members compete after a resource exchange by selling substitutable products and thus enables us to obtain insight into the effect of capacity and the intensity of competition on the extent to which an alliance can provide greater profit than when in the setting without an alliance. The problem of determining the optimal amounts of resources to exchange is formulated as a stochastic mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (SMPECs). We show how to determine whether there exists a unique equilibrium after resource exchange, how to compute the equilibrium, and how to compute the optimal resource exchange. SMPEC problem, which is generally very difficult to solve, is well-posed in the paper, and robust results can be obtained with a reasonable amount of computational effort

Resource Exchange Seller Alliances

Many carriers, such as airlines and ocean carriers, collaborate through the formation of alliances. The detailed alliance design is clearly important for both the stability of the alliance and profitability of the alliance members. This work is motivated by a real-life liner shipping "resource exchange alliance" agreement design. We provide an economic motivation for interest in resource exchange alliances and propose a model and method to design a resource exchange alliance. The model takes into account how the alliance members compete after a resource exchange by selling substitutable products and thus enables us to obtain insight into the effect of capacity and the intensity of competition on the extent to which an alliance can provide greater profit than when in the setting without an alliance. The problem of determining the optimal amounts of resources to exchange is formulated as a stochastic mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (SMPECs). We show how to determine whether there exists a unique equilibrium after resource exchange, how to compute the equilibrium, and how to compute the optimal resource exchange. SMPEC problem, which is generally very difficult to solve, is well-posed in the paper, and robust results can be obtained with a reasonable amount of computational effort

Revenue management in resource exchange seller alliances

The purpose of this paper is to obtain insight into conditions under which a resource exchange alliance can provide greater profit than the setting without an alliance, and to propose a model to design a resource exchange alliance. We first consider a setting in which customers want a combined product assembled from products sold by different sellers. We show that without an alliance the sellers will tend to price their products too high and sell too little, thereby foregoing potential profit, especially when capacity is large. This provides an economic motivation for interest in alliances, because the hope may be that some of the foregone profit may be captured under an alliance. We then consider a resource exchange alliance, including the effect of the alliance on competition among alliance members. We show that the foregone profit may indeed be captured under such an alliance. The problem of determining the optimal amounts of resources to exchange is formulated as a stochastic mathematical program with equilibrium constraints. We show how to determine whether there exists a unique equilibrium after resource exchange, how to compute the equilibrium, and how to compute the optimal resource exchange