We model a retailer’s assortment planning problem under a ranking-based choice model of consumer preferences. Under this consumer choice model each customer belongs to a type, where a type is a ranking of the potential products by the order of preference, and the customer purchases his highest ranked product (if any) offered in the assortment. In our model we consider products with different pr...

Platforms in two-sided markets compete over time by introducing new generations of their platform which they sell to consumers. New generations also allow the seller side of the market to produce and sell new products to consumers. For example, smartphones and video game consoles develop a new generation of their platform that is sold to consumers and that allows developers to produce and sell ...

This paper focuses on the issue of limited financial market participation and determines a lower bound on the level of fixed transaction costs that are required to reconcile observed portfolio choices with asset returns within an isoelastic utility framework. The bound is determined from the set of conditions that ensure the optimality of consumption behavior by financial market non-participant...

Mobile marketing also known as wireless marketing is a model of advertising that targets users of handheld mobile instruments like cell phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Mobile or SMS Marketing allows direct communication with the consumers, targeted audience and potential market of the company with much ease and in less time. [1] (Haghirian, 2001). SMS marketing can be more cost e...

With the latest development of smart grid technology, the energy management system can be efficiently implemented at consumer premises. In this paper, an energy management system with wireless communication and smart meter are designed for scheduling the electric home appliances efficiently with an aim of reducing the cost and peak demand. For an efficient scheduling scheme, the appliances are ...

The trillions of cigarette butts generated each year throughout the world pose a significant challenge for disposal regulations, primarily because there are millions of points of disposal, along with the necessity to segregate, collect and dispose of the butts in a safe manner, and cigarette butts are toxic, hazardous waste. There are some hazardous waste laws, such as those covering used tyres...

The Value of Sampling This is a first draft. Comments are welcome. This paper investigates consumer welfare implication of commercial breaks during television programmings. The conventional wisdom dictates that consumers prefer watching television without the disruption of commercial breaks. However, we argue that commercial breaks may improve the welfare of consumers under certain conditions. ...

The rent of shelter accounts for approximately a third of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Using a new housing rent index (RRI) developed by Ambrose, Coulson, and Yoshida (2014), we modify the CPI and compute the Taylor rule for the period from 2000 to 2010. With this timely rent index, Taylor rule becomes more consistent with the Federal funds rate than the conventional calculations. However, t...

This article studies the influence of product groupings on consumer preferences. Specifically, it is proposed that when each product in two groups has an equal chance of a gain, consumers prefer to choose from a group that appears more contagious (e.g., products arranged close together, similarly, or symmetrically). However, when each product in two groups has an equal chance of a loss, consume...

I develop a multi-country multi-industry model of trade that features heterogeneous consumers with non-homothetic preferences. I use the model to quantify the measurement errors in the welfare gains estimates caused by the assumption of a representative consumer (ARC). First, I reduce the world level of all trade costs by 15% and find that ARC overestimates (underestimates) the gains of the poo...