Download or read book Optimal Dynamic Investment Policies of a Value Maximizing Firm written by Peter M. Kort and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1.1. Scope of the Book This book is a contribution to the area of "dynamic models of the firm". The motivation for this kind of research is the following: Empirical studies (e.g. Albach (1976)) have shown that the development of the firm over time can be divided into different stages. such as growth. stationarity and contraction. In order to understand and evaluate these stages in a proper way. it is important to develop a suitable theoretical framework. To that end. economists have applied dynamic mathematical techniques. such as optimal control theory. calculus of variations and dynamic programming to design and analyse dynamic models of the firm. In this way. the economic theory of the firm is extended to a dynamic context. Within the field of the dynamics of the firm this book - develops a general investment decision rule. based on the concept "net present value of marginal investment". which is applicable in deterministic dynamic models of the firm; - studies the influence of adjustment costs of investment on optimal dynamic firm behavior; - extends the stochastic dynamic theory of the firm by connecting it with a dynamic version of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Before elaborating on "the dynamics of the firm". we first review the subject of net present value in the classical analysis.

Download or read book Project Scheduling under Limited Resources written by Sönke Hartmann and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaches to project scheduling under resource constraints are discussed in this book. After an overview of different models, it deals with exact and heuristic scheduling algorithms. The focus is on the development of new algorithms. Computational experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the new heuristics. Finally, it is shown how the models and methods discussed here can be applied to projects in research and development as well as market research.

Download or read book Money Inflation and Capital Formation written by Leopold von Thadden and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a slightly revised version of my doctoral thesis which I wrote during my time as an assistant at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Magdeburg. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to write my the sis in the stimulating atmosphere of this young and lively faculty. lowe a great amount of gratitude to my supervisor Prof. G. Schwodiauer who con stantly encouraged my work and helped to improve it in many discussions. I also would like to thank Prof. K-H. Paque and Prof. P. Flaschel who, as members of my doctoral committee, commented on various details of this study in a very constructive manner. At various stages of my work I received helpful comments from many colleagues of mine, in particular T. Konig and A. Wohrmann. However, it goes without saying that I retain full responsi bility for all remaining errors. Contents Introduction 1 I Money, inflation, and capital formation in the long run: general remarks 5 1 Summary of the literature: theoretical aspects 7 2 Summary of the literature: empirical aspects 19 3 Further reflections on money 29 II Money, inflation, and capital formation: the perspective of overlapping generations models 43 4 The Diamond model with money as single outside asset 45 4. 1 The model. . . . . . . . 46 4. 2 Equilibrium conditions. 51 4. 3 Policy effects 58 4. 4 Discussion. 61 4. 5 Appendix . 63 5 Variation 1: Imperfect credit markets and asymmetric information 65 5. 1 The model. . . . . . . .

Download or read book The Core of Economies with Asymmetric Information written by Ulrich Schwalbe and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: and should therefore constitute a part of every area of economic 3 theory. The spectrum covered by information economics today ranges from Stigler's search theory4 to industrial economics, including oligopoly theory, innovation, as well as research and develop 5 ment. However, the area information economics is most closely connected with is the theory of optimal contracts, mainly ana 6 lyzed in principal-agent models. Contract theory deals primar ily with the question of how optimal arrangements (contracts) for the purchase and sale of commodities and services between two or more agents should be structured. In these models, it is often assumed that the parties to the contract are informed differently or asymmetrically about relevant variables (e. g. the health of one party in the case of insurance contracts, or the effort in relation to employment contracts). As a result of this asymmetric in formation, phenomena such as moral hazard, adverse selection, signaling, and screening may arise. Frequently, results from con tract theory are referred to when making statements about the effects of asymmetric information on an economy. Models of this kind are often used to explain phenomena such as fixed wages or unemployment, among others. 7 However, such conclusions must be treated with caution for two reasons. In the first place, in these models, a contract (explicit or implicit) is determined by the solution of an optimization prob lem.

Download or read book Ill posed Variational Problems and Regularization Techniques written by Michel Thera and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents recent developments in the field of ill-posed variational problems and variational inequalities, covering a large range of theoretical, numerical and practical aspects. The main topics are: - Regularization techniques for equilibrium and fixed point problems, variational inequalities and complementary problems, - Links between approximation, penalization and regularization, - Bundle methods, nonsmooth optimization and regularization, - Error Bounds for regularized optimization problems.

Download or read book The Visible Hand written by Reiner B. Koblo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last decade highly innovatory developments have taken place in theoretical economics. The new focus of interest seems to be twofold: Firstly, nonlinear models for dynamic processes of the economy are constructed to extend the scope of linear models for tlle stationary euqilibrium state; and secondly a new approach is made to solve the everlasting problem of the relation between micro-and macro-economics. The interdisciplinary field of synergetics is deeply involved in this evolution. The author has made a remarkable contribution to both foci: His application of synergetic concepts to the theory of business cycles combines a partial solution of the micro-macro-problem, namely the modelling of the macro-economic effect of the decisions of investors, producers and consumers, with the natural introduction of nonlinearities. The arising new business cycle theory can on the one side be validated by empirical evidence and on the other hand the typical behavior of nonlinear dynamic systems including the transition to deterministic chaos can be clearly demonstrated. The hope is justified that the model presented in this book is a fw·ther important step in reaching a new level of the quantitative comprehension of dynamic phenomena in the economy. Stuttgart, June 1991 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Weidlich Foreword It is the author's objective to explain macroeconomic processes on the basis of micro economic decision-making behaviour. In order to achieve this goal, the concept of synergetics is presented as a method of describing dynamic phenomena in multi-com ponent systems with cooperative interactions between their elements.

Download or read book Inventory Business Cycles and Monetary Transmission written by Riccardo Fiorito and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inventory changes constitute in all countries a small fraction of the Gross National Product but also a major source or an indicator of cyclical fluctuations. In this volume both possible ways of propagation are investigated by examining in the first part what macroeconomists have learned and still have to learn about inventories in the light of statistical definitions and problems. In the second part, the role of monetary shocks in propagating business cycles is considered through liquidity effects and in relation to inventory adjustment. A possible linkage between inventory and labor market is shown. Finally, new evidence and theoretical insights are provided on the linear-quadratic inventory model and its ability to discriminate econometrically among competing firm behavior.

Download or read book Price Stabilization on World Agricultural Markets written by Bernd Lucke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International commodity markets have traditionally attracted the attention of economists, econometricians, and policy makers especially in and following politically tumultuous times. For instance, the primary commodity price boom of 1973/74 and the subsequent period of highly volatile world market prices initiated increased research on commodity markets which quickly focused on possible price stabilization schemes, particularly on buffer stocks. Simultaneously, the issue clearly advanced in priority on the political agenda, such that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) proposed an "Integrated Program for Commodities" (IPC) intended to stabilize the world market prices of ten so-called "core commodities"l (UNCTAD (1974, 1976a), Behrman (1979)). Many developing nations welcomed the IPC almost enthusiastically, but it did not receive more than lukewarm support by major industrialized countries, apparently due to the experience with some thirty international commodity agreements past World War II2. Critical evaluations have, among others, been presented by McNicol (1978), Gordon-Ashworth (1984), and Macbean & Nguyen (1987). The most detailed of these studies is Gordon-Ashworth's, who concludes that "on balance ... the performance of international commodity agreements has been too unreliable and their distributive effects too uneven to secure the development goals that have been set" (1984, p. 284)3. Consequently, the IPC turned out to be quite controversial a topic on the UNCTAD's 1976 meeting in Nairobi and has not been able to gain any impetus since. lThese were cocoa, coffee, copper, cotton, jute, rubber, sisal, sugar, tea, and tin.

Download or read book Production Planning in Automated Manufacturing written by Yves Crama and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book quantitative approaches are proposed for production planning problems in automated manufacturing. In particular techniques from operations research/combinatorial optimization provide ways to tackle these problems. Special attention is devoted to the efficient use of tools in production planning for automated manufacturing systems. The book presents models and tests solution strategies for different kinds of production decisions. A case study in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards highlights the methodology. This book will help understand the nature of production planning problems emerging in automated manufacturing and show how techniques from operations research may contribute to their solution.

Download or read book Resource Constrained Project Scheduling written by Arno Sprecher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within a project human and non-human resources are pulled together in a tempo raray organization in order to achieve a predefined goal (d. [20], p. 187). That is, in contrast to manufacturing management, project management is directed to an end. One major function of project management is the scheduling of the project. Project scheduling is the time-based arrangement of the activities comprising the project subject to precedence-, time-and resource-constraints (d. [4], p. 170). In the 1950's the standard methods MPM (Metra Potential Method) and CPM (Cri tical Path Method) were developed. Given deterministic durations and precedence constraints the minimum project length, time windows for the start times and critical paths can be calculated. At the same time another group of researchers developed the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) (d. [19], [73] and [90]). In contrast to MPM and CPM, random variables describe the activity durations. Based on the optimistic, most likely and pessimistic estimations of the activity durations an assumed Beta distribution is derived in order to calculate the distribution of the project duration, the critical events, the distribution of earliest and latest occurence of an event, the distribution of the slack of the events and the probability of exceeding a date. By the time the estimates of the distributions have been improved (d. e.g. [52] and [56]). Nevertheless, there are some points of critique concerning the estimation of the resulting distributions and probabilities (d. e.g. [48], [49] and [50]).

Download or read book Balanced Silverman Games on General Discrete Sets written by Gerald A. Heuer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Silverman game is a two-person zero-sum game defined in terms of two sets S I and S II of positive numbers, and two parameters, the threshold T > 1 and the penalty v > 0. Players I and II independently choose numbers from S I and S II, respectively. The higher number wins 1, unless it is at least T times as large as the other, in which case it loses v. Equal numbers tie. Such a game might be used to model various bidding or spending situations in which within some bounds the higher bidder or bigger spender wins, but loses if it is overdone. Such situations may include spending on armaments, advertising spending or sealed bids in an auction. Previous work has dealt mainly with special cases. In this work recent progress for arbitrary discrete sets S I and S II is presented. Under quite general conditions, these games reduce to finite matrix games. A large class of games are completely determined by the diagonal of the matrix, and it is shown how the great majority of these appear to have unique optimal strategies. The work is accessible to all who are familiar with basic noncooperative game theory.

Download or read book Two Person Bargaining Experiments with Incomplete Information written by Bettina Kuon and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Think of the following situation: A project yielding a gross profit of 100 is offered to two firms. The project can only be conducted by a cooperation of the two firms. No firm is able to conduct the project alone. In order to receive the project the firms have to agree on the allocation of the gross profit. Each of both firms has an alternative project it conducts in case the joint project is not realized. The profitability of an allocation of the joint gross profit for a firm depends on the gross profit from its alternative project. The gross profit from an alternative project can be either 0 (low alternative value) or O

Download or read book An Integrated Approach in Production Planning and Scheduling written by Stephane Dauzere-Peres and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Production Management is a large field concerned with all the aspects related to production, from the very bottom decisions at the machine level, to the top-level strategic decisicns. In this book, we are concerned with production planning and scheduling aspects. Traditional production planning methodologies are based on a now widely ac cepted hierarchical decom?osition into several planning decision levels. The higher in the hierarchy, the more aggregate are the models and the more important are the decisions. In this book, we only consider the last two decision levels in the hierarchy, namely, the mid-term (or tacticaQ planning level and the short-term (or operationaQ scheduling level. In the literature and in practice, the decisions are taken in sequence and in a top-down approach from the highest level in the hierarchy to the bottom level. The decisions taken at some level in the hierarchy are constrained by those already taken at upper levels and in turn, must translate into feasible objectives for the next lower levels in the hierarchy. It is a common sense remark to say that the whole hierarchical decision process is coherent if the interactions between different levels in the hierarchy are taken into account so that a decision taken at some level in the hierarchy translates into a feasible objective for the next decision level in the hierarchy. However, and surpris ingly enough, this crucial consistency issue is rarely investigated and few results are available in the literature.

Download or read book Multicriteria Optimization written by Matthias Ehrgott and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life is about decisions. Decisions, no matter if made by a group or an indi vidual, involve several conflicting objectives. The observation that real world problems have to be solved optimally according to criteria, which prohibit an "ideal" solution - optimal for each decision-maker under each of the criteria considered - has led to the development of multicriteria optimization. From its first roots, which where laid by Pareto at the end of the 19th century the discipline has prospered and grown, especially during the last three decades. Today, many decision support systems incorporate methods to deal with conflicting objectives. The foundation for such systems is a mathematical theory of optimization under multiple objectives. Fully aware of the fact that there have been excellent textbooks on the topic before, I do not claim that this is better text, but it has a has a consid erably different focus. Some of the available books develop the mathematical background in great depth, such as [SNT85, GN90, Jah86). Others focus on a specific structure of the problems covered as [Zel74, Ste85, Mie99) or on methodology [Yu85, CH83a, HM79). Finally there is the area of multicriteria decision aiding [Roy96, Vin92, KR93), the main goal of which is to help deci sion makers find the final solution (among many "optimal" ones) eventually to be implemented.

Download or read book Planning Stability in Material Requirements Planning Systems written by Gerald Heisig and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In logistics systems, the issue of planning stability has attracted increased attention and interest in recent years. This is mainly due to an increasing integration of planning systems both within and across companies in supply chain management. The propagation of adjustments in planning systems first acquired wide attention when MRP systems were employed as standard planning tools for material coordination. Within a rolling horizon framework the MRP application produced considerable planning instability which origins from uncertainties in the planner's exogenous environment as well as from endogenous sources. This book presents an analytical investigation that gives deep insight into the influence of different kind of inventory control rules on the stability of material planning systems under stochastic demand in a rolling horizon environment.

Download or read book Pricing Derivative Credit Risk written by Manuel Ammann and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Credit risk is an important consideration in most financial transactions. As for any other risk, the risk taker requires compensation for the undiversifiable part of the risk taken. In bond markets, for example, riskier issues generally promise investors a higher yield. The same principle also applies to financial derivatives. Otherwise identical derivative securities will likely have differ ent prices if the counterparties are not of the same credit quality. Although this argument seems intuitively convincing, widely used pricing models for financial derivatives do not incorporate credit risk effects. This research monograph analyzes the effect of credit risk on financial derivatives prices. Credit risk can affect derivatives prices in a variety of ways. First, financial derivatives can be subject to counterparty default risk. Second, a derivative can be written on a security which is subject to credit risk, such as a corporate bond. Third, the credit risk itself can be the un derlying of a derivative instrument. The text focuses on valuation models which take into account counterparty risk but also addresses the other two valuation problems.

Download or read book A Game Theory Analysis of Options written by Alexandre Ziegler and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modem option pricing theory was developed in the late sixties and early seventies by F. Black, R. C. Merton and M. Scholes as an analytical tool for pricing and hedging option contracts and over-the-counter warrants. However, already in the seminal paper by Black and Scholes, the applicability of the model was regarded as much broader. In the second part of their paper, the authors demonstrated that a levered firm's equity can be regarded as an option on the value of the firm, and thus can be priced by option valuation techniques. A year later, Merton showed how the default risk structure of corporate bonds can be determined by option pricing techniques. Option pricing models are now used to price virtually the full range of financial instruments and financial guarantees such as deposit insurance and collateral, and to quantify the associated risks. Over the years, option pricing has evolved from a set of specific models to a general analytical framework for analyzing the production process of financial contracts and their function in the financial intermediation process in a continuous time framework. However, virtually no attempt has been made in the literature to integrate game theory aspects, i. e. strategic financial decisions of the agents, into the continuous time framework. This is the unique contribution of the thesis of Dr. Alexandre Ziegler. Benefiting from the analytical tractability of continuous time models and the closed form valuation models for derivatives, Dr.