In this paper, we study the impact of carbon tax on carbon emission and retail price in a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer. Specifically, by adopting two types of contracts, i.e., the modified wholesale price (MW) and the modified cost-sharing contract (MS), supply chain coordination is achieved, which promotes the supply chain efficiency. Our study shows tha...

We compare the welfare effects of different regulation schemes of electricity distribution utilities. The compared regulation schemes are fixed price regulation, cost of service regulation, menu of cost-contingent contracts and simple menus of contracts. In our calculations we utilize the information of firm specific potential to improve cost efficiency. The firm specific cost information of Fi...

The technological advances in recent years are allowing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide Quality of Service (QoS) assurance for traffic through their domains. This article develops a spot pricing framework for intra-domain expected bandwidth contract with'a loss based QoS guarantee. The framework accounts for both the cost and the risks associated with QoS delivery. A nonlinear pric...

This note studies the optimal inspection policies in a supply chain in which a manufacturer purchases components from a supplier but has no direct control of component quality. The manufacturer uses an inspection policy and a damage cost sharing contract to encourage the supplier to improve the component quality. We find that all-or-none inspection policies are optimal for the manufacturer if t...

This paper explores options for reforming Medicare cost sharing in an effort to provide better financial protection for those beneficiaries with the greatest health care needs. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), we consider how unified annual deductibles, alternative coinsurance rates, and a limit on out-of-pocket spending w...

D espite the " 3 by 5 " initiative [1], which aims to treat 3 million people with antiretrovirals (ARVs) by the end of 2005, access to ARVs in resource-poor settings remains limited. Moreover, in some ARV-access programmes, free ARVs are provided only, or preferentially, to patients who are ARV naive. Treatment restricted to patients who are ARV naive was initially the case in Uganda, with the ...

This research evaluates the potential gains in benefits from using Goal Programming to preserve forestland. Twoand three-dimensional Goal Programming models are developed and applied to data from applicants to the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program, the largest forest protection program in the United States. Results suggest that not only do these model yield substantial increases in be...