In this paper, we show that under certain conditions, strategic decentralization through the addition of a retailer in the distribution channel can increase a manufacturer’s profits. The specific case on which we focus is the quantity coordination (double marginalization) problem for a manufacturer selling durable goods in a two-period setting. We show that the standard solution that coordinate...

Dentin matrix protein 1 (DMP-1) is a key molecule in controlling osteocyte formation and phosphate homeostasis. Based on observations that full-length DMP-1 is not found in bone, but only cleaved fragments of 37 and 57 kDa are present, and in view of the finding that mutations in the 57-kDa fragment result in disease, we hypothesized that the 57-kDa C-terminal fragment is the functional domain ...

Dimethylphthalate (DMP), one of the phthalate esters, is used in the manufacture of plasticizers, insect repellents, and synthetic fibers, and contributes to environmental pollution. In the present study, we report a novel bacterium belonging to the Bacillus sp., which has the ability to utilize DMP as the sole source of carbon. The esterases from the cell-free extract of the Bacillus de-esteri...

Service industries are a rapidly growing sector in the US economy and account for over 60% of its total output. Wireless communications in particular have become ubiquitous and there are an estimated 160 million subscribers in the US alone. In this paper, we focus on the wireless communications industry and model the impact of the nonlinear pricing schemes employed by service providers on custo...

This appendix provides additional intuition based on option pricing for the result in Proposition 2. Consider the case of monopoly. At time one, the monopolist is selling a series of call options, or equivalently units bundled with put options, rather than units themselves. The marginal price charged for a unit q at time two is simply the strike price of the option sold on unit q at time one. T...

We consider a seller with uncertain demand for its product. If the demand curve were certain, then setting price and setting quantity would be equivalent ways to frame the seller’s problem of choosing a profit-maximizing point on its demand curve. With uncertain demand, these become distinct sales mechanisms. We distinguish between uncertainty about the market size and uncertainty about the con...

where ν > 1 denotes the elasticity of substitution between varieties. As before, the set of available goods at Home ∆′ has measure N . It follows that the demand for good i is given by qi = [pi P ]−ν Q, where pi is the price of good i, and P = [∫ i∈∆′ p 1−ν i di ] 1 1−ν is the price of the aggregate consumption good Q. The total consumption expenditure of the representative Home household is gi...

Researchers have developed several theoretical methods for predicting epidemic thresholds, including the mean-field like (MFL) method, the quenched mean-field (QMF) method, and the dynamical message passing (DMP) method. When these methods are applied to predict epidemic threshold they often produce differing results and their relative levels of accuracy are still unknown. We systematically ana...

A random life expectancy and a positive relationship between the probability of dying and the degree of addiction are incorporated into a model of rational addiction. The BeckerMurphy equality between the addictive commodity’s full price and marginal utility is modified by discounting the market price and marginal utility of the addictive commodity by the probability of survival. The individual...