The price-setting newsvendor with service and loss constraints

Current performance measurement systems consider not only financial measures, like costs and profits, but also non-financial indicators with respect to customer service, quality and flexibility. Using the newsvendor model, we analyse the respective influence of these possibly conflicting performance measures on important operations and marketing decisions, for instance the order quantity and the selling price of a product. As in the classical newsvendor model for price-independent as well as price-dependent demand distribution, the objective of the firm is to maximise expected profit. In this paper, we also consider a service constraint—a lower bound for the level of product availability—and a loss constraint—an upper bound for the probability of a loss occurring. For both models, we provide conditions for the existence of solutions. We then analyse the influence of demand variability using a set of conditions specifying the quantiles of the predetermined performance measures: a higher variability of demand implies a smaller admissible region of the decision variables. In the price-independent case, the optimal solution has a control-limit structure: the optimal order quantity is thus given either by the classical newsvendor solution or by the control-limits corresponding to the constraints. In the price-setting model with multiplicative demand, this structure is used to check whether small admissible prices are determined by the service constraint or by the loss constraint. Using these structural results, a procedure is developed to more easily enable the computation of the optimal values of the order quantity, selling price and expected profit.     

基于期权定价理论的矿山项目投资风险评价

利用矿山投资过程中具有的某种相机选择权与美式看涨期权相似的特点,应用期权定价理论,研究了矿山投资中的机会价值,并建立了相应的矿山投资机会价值模型,弥补了应用净现值法评价矿山投资的不足。给出的算例计算结果符合人们在选择有较大风险的投资时需要一个较高价位的直观需求。     

消费者短视和以旧换新情形下设计架构与定价策略研究

耐用品的耐用性会抑制了新一代耐用品的销售,企业通常会采用以旧换新政策来激励新一代耐用品的销售。企业有两种产品设计架构策略:一体化架构策略与模块化架构策略,同时企业也有两种定价策略:静态定价策略和动态定价策略。在这种情况下,企业该如何确定产品设计架构和定价策略?在假定两期内消费者是短视情形下,论文建立了消费者与企业博弈模型分析和比较了三种情况。研究发现,无论是静态定价还是动态定价,无论是模块化架构还是一体化架构,购买了第一代产品的消费者都会整体更换成第二代产品;随着第二代核心系统的质量提升,以旧换新促使企业产品架构选择从一体化架构转变为选择模块化架构;当采用动态定价、第二代核心系统质量提升适中和折扣因子高时,企业会选择模块化架构;当企业采用模块化架构时,以旧换新政策会降低模块化产品第二代核心子系统和基础子系统之间的兼容性;如果两代产品之间的质量差距比较大,企业将会选择动态定价策略,反之会选择静态定价策略。     

“低价进入式审计定价”及其对审计独立性的影响

“低价进入式审计定价”是会计师事务所为招揽审计业务,将初期审计收费定价在审计成本之下,期望通过较长期的审计约定来弥补这一损失的行为过程与结果,其形成有初次审计的启动成本和后期审计费用提高时委托人更换审计人员的交易成本差异影响的原因,也有市场经济条件下信息不对称和不正当竞争的影响因素。这种现象损害了审计的客观独立性,是一种不正当竞争行为,财政部门与注册会计师协会应采取相应措施予以抑制。     

我国股票期权会计核算的研究

本文通过深入研究股票期权会计,认为应将股票期权确认为费用并运用公允价值进行计量。同时结合我国新会计准则中对股票期权确认和计量的有关规定,探讨我国股票期权应如何进行账务处理和信息披露。     

毕业生择业就业法律教育问题的探讨

毕业生择业法律教育是高校毕业生择业教育中的薄弱环节，由于学校就业指导工作中师资配置不合理等种种原因，造成毕业生在择业过程中一方面总会在毫无意识中违反法治社会的最基本原则，侵犯法律与道德底线，另一方面在对用人单位肆无忌惮地挑战法律的权威时，毕业生们又很少用法律武器保护自己。为改善毕业生择业法律教育的效果，应当从毕业生维权意识教育、合同意识教育、引导学生关注劳动保障相关法律法规并学会掌握救济的方法、提高学生的思想道德素质及改善毕业生择业就业环境等诸方面共同努力，做好毕业生择业法律教育工作。     

Selling Finite Capacity in Bulks*

We consider a firm that owns a limited capacity for the delivery of services or for the production of customized products. Potential buyers specify the amount of capacity they will require for the execution of their intended services, goods or projects. Based on the size of the requirement, the firm makes a bid while being challenged in various ways: (1) it only knows the underlying probability function from which its customers’ reservation prices are drawn, (2) arrival of additional future requests is stochastic, and, (3) the firm knows in advance neither the magnitude of these potential requests nor the buyer's reservation price. The firm aims to maximize its expected profit by choosing its pricing mechanism. The fact that capacity is demanded in varying amounts distinguishes this problem from most available literature in which standard sizes are sold or partial fulfillment and displacement are permitted. Lacking such allowances presents a new challenge to the firm as in conjunction with pricing it should also address the issue of various sizes requests’ compatibility to achieve optimal utilization of its capacity in order to maximize expected profit. In this article, we consider two approaches of handling this problem: myopic and foresighted. We formulate and analyze the problem to obtain the firm's optimal bidding decisions as well as managerial insight about the optimal bid level and its important role in coordinating buyers’ requests. Furthermore, due to this role, pricing patterns in this environment are different than those in standard unit sales.     

Production and pricing problems in make-to-order supply chain with cap-and-trade regulation

This paper studies the production and pricing problems in MTO (make-to-order) supply chain containing an upstream manufacturer who produces two products based on MTO production and a downstream retailer. The manufacturer is regulated by cap-and-trade regulation and determines the wholesale prices of the two products. To comply with the regulation, the manufacturer can buy or sell emission permits through an outside market. The retailer determines its order quantities to meet the price-sensitive demands. We derive the optimal total emissions and production quantities of the two products, and based on them, we analyze the impact of emission trading price on the optimal production decisions and the two firms’ optimal profits. The emission trading decisions follow a two-threshold policy and the optimal total emissions are increasing in the cap. However, contrary to intuition, the optimal production quantities of the two products may be decreasing in the cap. The manufacturer׳s optimal profit is decreasing (increasing) in the buying (selling) price of emission permits, and that the retailer׳s optimal profit is decreasing in the buying (selling) price of emission permits. The optimal total emissions are decreasing in buying or selling price of emission permits, however, the optimal production quantities of the two products may be increasing (decreasing) in the buying (selling) price of emission permits. Numerical examples are conducted to illustrate our findings and some managerial insights are presented.