As the safety and efficacy of IUDs are being appreciated by more clinicians and by more women, the demand for these devices has grown. Unfortunately, the prices of these devices have also increased over the last few years. The cost of the IUD, when amortized over the average time of utilization, is very low, but that does little to buffer women from the initial sticker shock. In times of econom...

In Part III of this paper, we apply the price dynamical model with big buyers and big sellers developed in Part I of this paper to the daily closing data of the top 20 stocks in Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The basic idea is to estimate the strength parameters of the big buyers and the big sellers in the model and make buy/sell decisions based on these parameter estimates. We de...

This paper develops a multi-attribute competition model for procurement of short life cycle products. In such an environment, the buyer installs dedicated production capacity at the suppliers before demand is realized. Final production orders are decided after demand materializes. Of course, the buyer is reluctant to bear all the capacity and inventory risk, and thus signs flexible contracts wi...

Fingerprinting schemes enable a merchant to identify the buyer of an illegally distributed digital good by providing each buyer with a slightly different version. Asymmetric fingerprinting schemes further prevent the merchant from framing a buyer by making the fingerprinted version known to the buyer only. In addition, an anonymous fingerprinting scheme allows the buyer to purchase goods withou...

This paper investigates the sequencing choice of a buyer who negotiates with the sellers of two complementary objects with uncertain payoffs. We show that the buyer cares about the sequence only when equilibrium trade can be inefficient. In this case, the buyer begins with the weaker seller if the sellers have diverse bargaining powers. If, however, both sellers are strong bargainers, then the ...

In this paper, we suggest using an English Auction Protocol for a procurement multi-attribute auction in which the item for sale is defined by several attributes, the buyer agent is the auctioneer, and the seller agents are the bidders. Such domains include auctions on task allocation, services, or compound products. At the beginning of the auction the buyer agent announces the required propert...

  This article investigates integrated production-inventory models with backorder. A single supplier and a single buyer are considered and shortage as backorder is allowed for the buyer. The proposed models determine optimal order quantity, optimal backorder quantity and optimal number of deliveries on the joint total cost for both buyer and supplier. Two cases are discussed: single-setup-singl...

In this paper, we study an outsourced supply chain consisting of one buyer and two suppliers in which the buyer outsources manufacturing of a physical product to two competing suppliers. The suppliers compete for the buyers' demands share, and the buyer allocates the demands to the competing suppliers based on three-dimensional allocation functions. We consider two certain types of allocation f...

This paper surveys and analyzes the state of the art of buyer coalition mechanisms, paying attention to single item and bundle of items aspects. From the exits buyer coalition schemes, the solution concepts of their mechanisms are concerned with are related to both cooperative and non-cooperative game theory. Finally, we conclude by discussing the future directions of buyer coalition mechanisms.

This paper investigates how the formation of larger buyers affects a supplier's profits and, by doing so, his incentives to undertake non-contractible activities. We first identify two channels of buyer power, which allows larger buyers to obtain discounts. We subsequently examine the effects of buyer power on the supplier's incentives and on social welfare. Contrary to some informal claims in ...