Data mining models often carry the final objective of maximizing profit or minimizing cost. This problem becomes even more profound in financial applications that can have multiple constraints, such as interest rate, score cut-off, and the loan amount to allocate. In this paper, we present a pricing framework for discovering the total profit from a probabilistic model, given a benefit function.

This paper revisits the no-attachment assumption in job search models with random productivity fluctuations and Nash-bargaining. Both workers and firms value the option to remain in attachment: firms profit from a reduced hiring cost, while workers gain from a higher reservation wage when bargaining with a new employer. Ex-post differentiation of workers into attached and unattached unemployed ...

Although a comprehensive framework for most of the theoretical foundations of duality has been available to economists since the seminal work by Shephard in 1953, empirical applications of duality have become popular mainly during the last ten years. The first empirical study which I am aware of that exploited duality theory is the one by Nerlove in 1963 which estimated a CobbDouglas cost funct...

Profit Sharing and Training We analyze the impact of profit sharing on the share of workers receiving training. An effect is plausible because: 1) profit sharing is a credible commitment by firms to reward firmspecific skills acquired by formal or informal training, 2) profit sharing may reduce turnover and increase the returns to training, 3) a common payment for the whole workforce leads to p...

Set-asides and subsidies are used extensively in government procurement and resource sales. We analyze these policies in an empirical model of US Forest Service timber auctions. The model fits the data well both within the sample of unrestricted sales used for estimation, and when we predict (out-of-sample) outcomes for small business set-asides. Our estimates suggest that restricting entry sub...

The latest reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) raised concerns regarding the future of low-productivity farming systems, which are often those most worthy of environmental conservation. In Spain, the conservation of the cereal-steppe avifauna, a community of European importance, relies on the continuity of low-intensity cereal systems and traditional cultivation patterns. In...

Due to the advance of technology, manufacturers’ marketing strategies and quickly changing consumer tastes, numerous products such as fashionable apparel, clothing accessories and consumer electronics are liable to face the problem of short lifespan and obsolescence. Therefore, three related aspects are addressed in this paper. Firstly, we derive a time-dependent demand model for single-period ...

The structure and operation of today's financial markets largely reflect relatively recent advances in electronic information technology and its applications. The ability of market participants to communicate and store vast amounts of information at very high speeds has irreversibly transformed the landscape of these markets. The age of the global, twenty-four-hour-day market is at hand.' Signi...