With the cooperation of a large mobile service provider, we conduct a novel field experiment that simultaneously randomizes the prices of two competing movie theaters using mobile coupons. Unlike studies that only vary one firm’s prices, our experiment allows us to account for competitor response. We test mobile targeting based on consumers’ real-time and historic locations, allowing us to eval...

This paper provides insights into (1) the impact of production location on design competitiveness and (2) the tension between product customization for regional production and for product customization for regional markets. The results show that as production and demand for automobiles shifts to emerging economies, and in particular to China, there may be a shift in the technologies that are co...

In many social animals, group-mates cooperate to defend their range against intrusion by neighboring groups. Because group size tends to be highly variable, such conflicts are often asymmetric. Although numerical superiority is assumed to provide a competitive advantage, small groups can generally defend their ranges, even when greatly outnumbered. The prevailing explanation for this puzzling p...

We consider a natural online optimization problem set on the real line. The state of the online algorithm at each integer time t is a location xt on the real line. At each integer time t, a convex function ft(x) arrives online. In response, the online algorithm picks a new location xt. The cost paid by the online algorithm for this response is the distance moved, namely |xt − xt−1|, plus the va...

The page migration problem in Euclidean space is revisited. In this problem, online requests occur at any location to access a single page located at a server. Every request must be served, and the server has the choice to migrate from its current location to a new location in space. Each service costs the Euclidean distance between the server and request. A migration costs the distance between...

We study the problem of on-line searching for a target inside a polygon. In particular, we propose a strategy for finding a target of unknown location in a star-shaped polygon with a competitive ratio of 11.52. We also provide a lower bound of 9 for the competitive ratio of searching in a star-shaped polygon which is close to the upper bound. A similar task is the on-line recognition of a star-...

We revisit the problem of searching for a target at an unknown location on a line when given upper and lower bounds on the distance D that separates the initial position of the searcher from the target. Prior to this work, only asymptotic bounds were known for the optimal competitive ratio achievable by any search strategy in the worst case. We present the first tight bounds on the exact optima...

It is widely accepted that technological change underpins a global economy and that geographic location and concentration is of foremost importance for regional development and competitive advantage. The realities of global competition require an understanding on the local level of global markets and the complexities of interactions with multiple stakeholders along global supply and value chain...

We consider the problem of searching on m current rays for a target of unknown location. If no upper bound on the distance to the target is known in advance, then the optimal competitive ratio is 1+2mm=(m 1)m 1 . We show that if an upper bound of D on the distance to the target is known in advance, then the competitive ratio of any search strategy is at least 1+2mm=(m 1)m 1 O(1= log2 D) which i...

We revisit the problem of searching for a target at an unknown location on a line when given upper and lower bounds on the distance D that separates the initial position of the searcher from the target. Prior to this work, only asymptotic bounds were known for the optimal competitive ratio achievable by any search strategy in the worst case. We present the first tight bounds on the exact optima...