scholarly journals The Value of Sharing Intermittent Spectrum

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (11) ◽  
pp. 5242-5264
Author(s):  
Randall Berry ◽  
Michael Honig ◽  
Thành Nguyen ◽  
Vijay Subramanian ◽  
Rakesh Vohra
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wireless Service ◽  
Wireless Spectrum ◽  
Access Policies ◽  
Recent Policy

We examine a model of Cournot competition with congestion motivated by recent policy to allow commercial sharing of wireless spectrum that is assigned to other users such as government agencies. A key feature of such spectrum is that it is intermittently available because of the incumbent user’s activity. In our model, wireless service providers (SPs) compete for a common pool of customers using their own proprietary (exclusively licensed) bands of spectrum along with access to an additional intermittent band. When the intermittent band is unavailable, any traffic carried on that band must be shifted to the proprietary bands. Customers are sensitive to both the price they pay and the average congestion they experience across the bands of spectrum from which they receive service. We compare two different access policies for this intermittent band: one in which it is open to all SPs and one in which it is licensed to a single SP. We also allow the band to be divided into multiple subbands where each subband is either open or licensed. We characterize trade-offs between social welfare and consumer welfare that depend on the choice of different access policies and assignments of subbands to SPs. These can involve subtle issues related to the ability of a larger SP to make more efficient use of intermittent spectrum and the increase in competition by assigning more spectrum to smaller SPs. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, operations management.

The Important Role of Time Limits When Consumers Choose Their Time in Service

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pnina Feldman ◽  
Ella Segev
Keyword(s):  
Operations Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Welfare Benefit ◽  
Time Limits ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Time In Service

A main challenge that service providers face when managing service systems is how to generate value and regulate congestion at the same time. To this end, classical queueing models suggest managers charge per-use fees and invest in capacity to speed up the service. However, in discretionary services, in which consumers value time in service and choose how long to stay, per-use fees result in suboptimal performance and speeding up does not apply. We study a queueing model of a service provider and rational consumers who are heterogenous in their requirements for service duration. Consumers incur disutility from waiting and choose whether to join and how long to spend in service. We consider time limits as a novel mechanism that may help in controlling congestion. Time limits put a cap on the maximum time that customers can spend in service. We analyze their effectiveness when combined with two price schemes: per-use fees and price rates. Time limits are effective because they reduce time in service and impact waiting times and joining behavior. Revenue maximizing firms and social planners who maximize social welfare benefit from implementing time limits in addition to price rates. Social planners who seek to maximize consumer welfare, however, focus on regulating congestion and should, therefore, offer the service for free but implement time limits if congestion levels are high. The attractiveness of time limits goes further. We show that time limits are not only a useful lever that works well when combined with simple price mechanisms, but they are in fact optimal when congestion is high. Service providers can achieve the first-best outcome and extract all customer surplus by coupling a time limit with an optimal price mechanism. The attractiveness of time limits stems from their ability to reduce not only the average time spent in service, but also its variance. This is highly effective in settings in which customers’ service times impose externalities on others’ waiting times. Thus, we conclude that providers of discretionary services should set time limits when congestion is an issue. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Implications of Price Matching in Supply Chain Negotiation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weixin Shang ◽  
Gangshu (George) Cai
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Wholesale Price ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Nash Bargaining ◽  
Price Matching ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Multiple Buyers ◽  
Wholesale Pricing

Problem definition: Few papers have explored the impact of price matching negotiation (PM), in which a channel matches its price with the resulting wholesale price bargained by another channel, on firms’ performances, consumer welfare, and social welfare, with and without supply chain coordination. Academic/practical relevance: Negotiation has been widely seen in determining both uniform and discriminatory wholesale prices, which affect outcomes of competitive supply chain practices. Methodology: To characterize the PM mechanism, we use game theory and Nash bargaining theory to compare PM with simultaneous negotiation (SN) through a common-seller two-buyer differentiated Bertrand competition model. Results: Our analysis reveals that PM can benefit the seller but hurt all buyers, which is at odds with some fair wholesale pricing clauses intending to protect buyers. Under coordination with side payments, however, all firms can conditionally benefit more from PM than from SN. Despite firms’ gains, PM leads to less consumer utility and social welfare compared with SN, unless the second buyer in PM is considerably less powerful than the first buyer. Coordination further worsens PM’s negative impact on consumer utility and social welfare. Moreover, the existence of a spot market can increase the wholesale price in PM, hurting buyers, consumers, and society. Furthermore, the qualitative results about PM remain robust under an alternative disagreement point for PM, multiple buyers, and other extensions. Managerial implications: This paper delivers insights on when price matching in supply chain wholesale price negotiation can benefit a seller, buyers, consumers, and society in a variety of scenarios. It advocates how managers can use PM to their own advantages and provides rationale to decision makers for policy regulations regarding wholesale pricing.

Drivers, Riders, and Service Providers: The Impact of the Sharing Economy on Mobility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saif Benjaafar ◽  
Harald Bernhard ◽  
Costas Courcoubetis ◽  
Michail Kanakakis ◽  
Spyridon Papafragkos
Keyword(s):  
Operations Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Sharing Economy ◽  
Car Ownership ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Ride Sharing ◽  
Finite Set ◽  
Nonatomic Game ◽  
Payoff Functions ◽  
The Impact

It is widely believed that ride sharing, the practice of sharing a car such that more than one person travels in the car during a journey, has the potential to significantly reduce traffic by filling up cars more efficiently. We introduce a model in which individuals may share rides for a certain fee, paid by the rider(s) to the driver through a ride-sharing platform. Collective decision making is modeled as an anonymous nonatomic game with a finite set of strategies and payoff functions among individuals who are heterogeneous in their income. We examine how ride sharing is organized and how traffic and ownership are affected if a platform, which chooses the seat rental price to maximize either revenue or welfare, is introduced to a population. We find that the ratio of ownership to usage costs determines how ride sharing is organized. If this ratio is low, ride sharing is offered as a peer-to-peer (P2P) service, and if this ratio is high, ride sharing is offered as a business-to-customer (B2C) service. In the P2P case, rides are initiated by drivers only when the drivers need to fulfill their own transportation requirements. In the B2C case, cars are driven all the time by full-time drivers taking rides even if these are not motivated by their private needs. We show that, although the introduction of ride sharing may reduce car ownership, it can lead to an increase in traffic. We also show that traffic and ownership may increase as the ownership cost increases and that a revenue-maximizing platform might prefer a situation in which cars are driven with only a few seats occupied, causing high traffic. We contrast these results with those obtained for a social welfare-maximizing platform. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management.

Customer Review Provision Policies with Heterogeneous Cluster Preferences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shihong Xiao ◽  
Ying-Ju Chen ◽  
Christopher S. Tang
Keyword(s):  
Operations Management ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Heterogeneous Cluster ◽  
Heterogeneous Preferences ◽  
Experience Goods ◽  
The Third ◽  
Experience Good ◽  
Common User

Companies often post user-generated reviews online so that potential buyers in different clusters (age, geographic region, occupation, etc.) can learn from existing customers about the quality of an experience good and cluster preferences before purchasing. In this paper, we evaluate two common user-generated review provision policies for selling experience goods to customers in different clusters with heterogeneous preferences. The first policy is called the association-based policy (AP) under which a customer in a cluster can only observe the aggregate review (i.e., average rating) generated by users within the same cluster. The second policy is called the global-based policy (GP) under which each customer is presented with the aggregate review generated by all users across clusters. We find that, in general, the firm benefits from a policy that provides a larger number of “relevant reviews” to customers. When customers are more certain about the product quality and when clusters are more diverse, AP is more profitable than GP because it provides cluster-specific reviews to customers. Otherwise, GP is more profitable as it provides a larger number of less relevant reviews. Moreover, we propose a third provision policy that imparts the union of the information by AP and GP and show that it is more profitable for the firm. Although the third policy always renders a higher consumer welfare than GP, it may generate a lower consumer welfare than AP. This paper was accepted by Martínez-de-Albéniz Victor, operations management.

GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS OF THE USING CLOUD SERVICES

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olexander Melnikov ◽  
◽  
Konstantin Petrov ◽  
Igor Kobzev ◽  
Viktor Kosenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Cloud Service ◽  
Cloud Services ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Cloud Infrastructure ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Technological Base

The article considers the development and implementation of cloud services in the work of government agencies. The classification of the choice of cloud service providers is offered, which can serve as a basis for decision making. The basics of cloud computing technology are analyzed. The COVID-19 pandemic has identified the benefits of cloud services in remote work Government agencies at all levels need to move to cloud infrastructure. Analyze the prospects of cloud computing in Ukraine as the basis of e-governance in development. This is necessary for the rapid provision of quality services, flexible, large-scale and economical technological base. The transfer of electronic information interaction in the cloud makes it possible to attract a wide range of users with relatively low material costs. Automation of processes and their transfer to the cloud environment make it possible to speed up the process of providing services, as well as provide citizens with minimal time to obtain certain information. The article also lists the risks that exist in the transition to cloud services and the shortcomings that may arise in the process of using them.

Mutual Aid, State Welfare, and Organized Charity: Fraternal Societies and the “Deserving” and “Undeserving” Poor, 1900–1930

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Beito
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
State Welfare ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Welfare Agencies ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Few terms have recurred so often in the work of American social welfare historians as “deserving” (or worthy) and “undeserving” (unworthy). These concepts, of course, describe criteria employed by private and government agencies to determine eligibility for social welfare assistance. A special object of concern in the literature has been their use, in particular misuse, by charity organizations and welfare agencies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

How Price Dispersion Changes When Upgrades Are Introduced: Theory and Empirical Evidence from the Airline Industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (8) ◽  
pp. 3835-3852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao Cui ◽  
A. Yeşim Orhun ◽  
Izak Duenyas
Keyword(s):  
Operations Management ◽  
Airline Industry ◽  
Price Dispersion ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Differentiation Strategy ◽  
Valuation Effect ◽  
Price Distribution ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

This paper studies the effect of introducing a new vertical differentiation strategy, paying for an upgrade to a premium product after purchasing the base product, on the price dispersion of the base product arising from existing price discrimination strategies. In particular, we examine how a major U.S. airline’s price dispersion in the coach cabin changes after introducing the option to upgrade to a new type of premium economy seating within the coach cabin. We first provide a theoretical analysis that highlights two competing pressures that the new premium economy seating upgrades created on coach class prices. On the one hand, the airline benefits from lowering its prices because by allowing more customers to purchase in the first place, it increases the probability of selling upgrades (admission effect). On the other hand, for some customers, the value of flying with the airline increases because of the upgrade availability, therefore the airline may find it optimal to increase its prices (valuation effect). In the second part of the paper, we conduct an empirical investigation of the impact of upgrade introduction on coach class prices, based on a proprietary transaction-level data set from a major U.S. airline company. The empirical analysis tests the main predictions of our theoretical model and examines further nuances. The results show that the introduction of the premium economy seating upgrades is associated with an increase in the price dispersion and revenues in the coach class, the admission effect is stronger than the valuation effect on the low end of the price distribution, and the opposite is true on the high end of the price distribution. Finally, we discuss implications of our results for firm revenues and consumer welfare. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.

Factors affecting the development of e-government using a citizen-centric approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanda Sorn-in ◽  
Kulthida Tuamsuk ◽  
Wasu Chaopanon
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Government Services ◽  
Government Sector ◽  
The Government

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the factors affecting the development of e-government by using a citizen-centric approach. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a mixed-methods study consisting of qualitative and quantitative research. Data were collected from government agencies using a structured interview and questionnaire about e-government services. The research was collected from the people responsible for the management of an e-government project in 75 government agencies. In addition, the researcher collected data from 1,400 citizens by using an e-Survey questionnaire that grouped participants by age. Findings – By using a citizen-centric approach, the paper identified the factors affecting the development of e-government. There were five factors from the viewpoint of government agencies and citizen groups: quality of e-government services, policy and governance, information technology infrastructure, organization and economy and society. Research limitations/implications – The research covered the development patterns of e-government for services from government to citizens only. Practical implications – Seeing the importance of environmental factors for both service providers and service users would facilitate continuous improvement of e-government service provision by government agencies. Social implications – The results reflect citizens’ need for e-government services; quality is their priority. Hence, government agencies must consider the quality of the delivery of information and e-government services as they relate to the lifestyles and needs of citizens. Originality/value – The creation of knowledge from merging e-government concepts with citizen-centric principles is a modern government sector management theory. This research stresses the need for the government sector to see the need for e-government and to recognize the factors for its successful development. This means the design and development of e-government services should respond to the increasing needs of the citizens.

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