Seminar: From the Classics to New Tunes: A Neoclassical View on Sharing Economy and Innovative Marketplaces

Operations management has the tradition of coming from and going back to real-life applications. It deals with the management of the process of matching supply with demand. The emerging business process in a sharing economy or an innovative marketplace calls for active management from the operational perspective. We take a neoclassical perspective by drawing inspiration from the classic models in operations management and economics.

Seminar: Value of High-Quality Logistics: Evidence from a Clash Between SF Express and Alibaba

Consumers regard product delivery as an important service component that influences their shopping decisions on online retail platforms. Delivering products to customers in a timely and reliable manner enhances customer experience and companies' profitability. In this research, we explore the extent to which customers value a high-quality delivery experience when shopping online.

An Analysis of ``Buy X, Get One Free'' Reward Programs

This paper investigates the effects of reward redemption hurdles in customer reward programs. Our research context is ``buy X, get one free'' (BXGO) reward programs, which incorporate two common redemption hurdles: a redemption threshold (X purchases are required for a free product) and an expiry policy (unused reward points are lost after T periods of inactivity). Our analysis leads to the following results.

Seminar: Investing in Performance: Information and Merit-Based Incentives in K-12 Education by Prof Sergei Savin

The United States educational policy requires that K-12 students participate in annual standardized tests. As a result, school districts that have traditionally utilized ongoing “formative" assessments of student progress, are increasingly relying on additional, costly “interim" assessments. In addition, some districts are experimenting with merit-based incentives that tie teachers' bonuses to student performance on state tests. We examine the relationship between information on student performance and monetary incentives for teachers using a two-period principal-agent model.

Seminar: Robust Machine Learning for Operations by Dr Xi Chen

A wide range of operations problems are built on an underlying probabilistic model. However, estimation error always exists when learning from these models, which can lead to misleading decision-making. Moreover, these models are inherently mis-specified to a certain degree, which calls for robust learning and policies for these operations problems. In this talk, we will discuss robust machine learning and its applications to operations problems.