Prices and quantities in the arms trade*

There are two main sources of information about the Arms Trade, SIPRI and ACDA. These two sources give very different pictures of the evolution of the market, primarily because their measures are designed to capture conceptually different features. Although they are both expressed in constant dollars, the SIPRI series is designed to be a volume index of physical transfers, the ACDA series a constant price value index. Thus in principle, the ratio of the ACDA to SIPRI series should provide an implicit price index of arms; though in practice there are many measurement problems. In this paper, we discuss the basis of these indices and show that the ratio, the implicit price, not only looks plausible in the light of the evolution of the market, but has a significant negative effect on the demand for arms imports in an econometric equation.     

Natural gas storage valuation and optimization: A real options application

In this article, we present an algorithm for the valuation and optimal operation of natural gas storage facilities. Real options theory is used to derive nonlinear partial‐integro‐differential equations (PIDEs), the solution of which give both valuation and optimal operating strategies for these facilities. The equations are designed to incorporate a wide class of spot price models that can exhibit the same time‐dependent, mean‐reverting dynamics, and price spikes as those observed in most energy markets. Particular attention is paid to the operational characteristics of real storage units. These characteristics include working gas capacities, variable deliverability and injection rates, and cycling limitations. We illustrate the model with a numerical example of a salt cavern storage facility that clearly shows how a gas storage facility is like a financial straddle with both put and call properties. Depending on the amount of gas in storage the relative influence of the put and call components vary. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

基于VAR的物价对舰船维修工时费率影响的动态计量分析

在相关性、平稳性和协整性检验基础上,建立舰船维修工时费率与物价之间的VAR模型,并借助Granger因果关系检验、脉冲响应函数分析和方差分解对模型进行动态分析.研究发现:物价与舰船维修工时费率之间存在长期均衡关系,两者互为Granger原因;工时费率会对物价变化产生及时的正向响应,并具有长效性,短期内工时费率受自身惯性的影响较大,随后物价对其影响的贡献率迅速上升,达到与其自身惯性相近的均衡状态;物价对工时费率变化的响应有1 a的时滞,且响应程度相对较小.长期来看,两者相互影响的关系使得工时费率呈波动上升的趋势.     

舰船装备价格指数与物价指数的关系研究

对舰船装备价格指数与物价指数建立数学模型 ,主要分析物价指数对舰船各项成本的影响 ,分析舰船装备价格指数比物价指数涨幅更大的原因 .     

THE ‘PRICE’ OF TERRORISM

Security measures are said to increase the price of terrorism. This price has not been hitherto defined in an economically meaningful way. This paper provides a precise definition by treating the terrorists’ resource endowment as a parcel of contingent claims to political influence with a price equal to the summed value of those contingent claims in potential states of the world. Equipped with this definition, an equilibrium model of the price of terrorism is deployed. Important insights are gained into the effect of terrorists’ risk aversion at the level of the price of terrorism in different states of the world and the theoretical conclusion is reached that higher security is associated with a lower price of terrorism rather than a higher price. The implications for policy are discussed.     

战争系统复杂性及其基于Agent建模仿真研究进展

复杂性科学是当今世界科学发展的热点和前沿,其研究与应用正迅速向各个学科渗透和扩展,成为备受众多领域科学家关注的交叉学科研究领域.目前,在军事科学领域,战争复杂性的问题正日益受到学者们的广泛关注.应用复杂系统建模与仿真方法对战争复杂性问题进行建模与仿真研究是一种有别于传统的基于兰切斯特方程等数学模型方法研究战争问题的一种新方法.讨论了战争系统复杂性问题,在掌握现有资料的基础上,力图较全面介绍国内外关于基于Agent战争系统复杂性建模与仿真方面的最新研究进展,并对相关的研究成果给出了自己的看法.     

“No boots on the ground”: the effectiveness of US drones against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

The number of US drone strikes against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen has increased significantly since 2010, but received limited academic attention. This article examines the effectiveness of this drone campaign using an existing theoretical framework. Crucially, we contribute to the framework by adding a fourth intervening variable, namely target correspondence. Through a single case study, it is found that drones have only enjoyed limited success in degrading AQAP's hierarchical structure, qualified human resources and access to key material resources, and in some cases – owing to our target correspondence analysis – this limited success has come at a price. It is found that drones have temporarily disrupted AQAP by successfully eliminating senior leaders involved in coordinating and overseeing external operations. Overall, AQAP's ability to hit Western targets remains significant.     

On the effectiveness of returns policies in the price‐dependent newsvendor model

We study in this paper the price‐dependent (PD) newsvendor model in which a manufacturer sells a product to an independent retailer facing uncertain demand and the retail price is endogenously determined by the retailer. We prove that for a zero salvage value and some expected demand functions, in equilibrium, the manufacturer may elect not to introduce buybacks. On the other hand, if buybacks are introduced in equilibrium, their introduction has an insignificant effect on channel efficiency improvement, but, by contrast, may significantly shift profits from the retailer to the manufacturer. We further demonstrate that the introduction of buybacks increases the wholesale price, retail price, and inventory level, as compared to the wholesale price‐only contract, and that the corresponding vertically integrated firm offers the lowest retail price and highest inventory level. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Auctions in the post‐change‐order period

A change order is frequently initiated by either the supplier or the buyer, especially when the contract is long‐term or when the contractual design is complex. In response to a change order, the buyer can enter a bargaining process to negotiate a new price. If the bargaining fails, she pays a cancellation fee (or penalty) and opens an auction. We call this process the sequential bargaining‐auction (BA). At the time of bargaining, the buyer is uncertain as to whether the bargained price is set to her advantage; indeed, she might, or might not, obtain a better price in the new auction. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a new change‐order‐handling mechanism by which the buyer has an option to change the contractual supplier after bargaining ends with a bargained price. We call this the option mechanism. By this mechanism, the privilege of selling products or services is transferred to a new supplier if the buyer exercises the option. To exercise the option, the buyer pays a prespecified cash payment, which we call the switch price, to the original supplier. If the option is not exercised, the bargained price remains in effect. When a switch price is proposed by the buyer, the supplier decides whether or not to accept it. If the supplier accepts it, the buyer opens an auction. The option is exercised when there is a winner in the auction. This article shows how, under the option mechanism, the optimal switch price and the optimal reserve price are determined. Compared to the sequential BA, both the buyer and the supplier benefit. Additionally, the option mechanism coordinates the supply chain consisting of the two parties. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 248–265, 2015     

基于因子分解和光束法平差从航空序列图像恢复三维结构

从航空序列图像恢复目标三维结构是航空摄影测量的基本问题。针对现有算法中精度与计算量的矛盾,提出一种基于因子分解与光束法平差的新算法。作为因子分解与光束法平差的桥梁,提出基于"R T"模式共线方程的概念,详细推导了其线性化公式。仿真实验和真实图像实验表明,新算法精度高、稳定性好,可应用于航空测绘、虚拟现实、军事侦察等工程实践。     

Missile Strategy in a Post-Nuclear Age

While the arrival of nuclear weapons coincided roughly with the development of short, medium, intermediate, and eventually intercontinental missiles, the contribution of missile technology to the deterrence equation is often lost. If nuclear weapons were eliminated, even new generation missiles with conventional payloads could struggle to render effective deterrence. But some of the physical and psychological effects commonly ascribed to nuclear weapons could still be in play. And in a world without nuclear weapons, thinking about the use and control of force from the nuclear age would also deserve renewed attention.     

Inventory control and periodic price discounting campaigns

This paper develops an inventory model that determines replenishment strategies for buyers facing situations in which sellers offer price‐discounting campaigns at random times as a way to drive sales or clear excess inventory. Specifically, the model deals with the inventory of a single item that is maintained to meet a constant demand over time. The item can be purchased at two different prices denoted high and low. We assume that the low price goes into effect at random points in time following an exponential distribution and lasts for a random length of time following another exponential distribution. We highlight a replenishment strategy that will lead to the lowest inventory holding and ordering costs possible. This strategy is to replenish inventory only when current levels are below a certain threshold when the low price is offered and the replenishment is to a higher order‐up‐to level than the one currently in use when inventory depletes to zero and the price is high. Our analysis provides new insight into the behavior of the optimal replenishment strategy in response to changes in the ratio of purchase prices together with changes in the ratio of the duration of a low‐price period to that of a high‐price period. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007.     

代价论视角中的和谐社会建设原则

立足社会发展代价的基本内涵和当代中国社会发展代价付出的具体方式两个基本价值维度,阐述了代价论视角的和谐社会建设原则,以期勾勒出未来社会发展的理想图景。     

Joint pricing and ordering policy for exponentially decaying inventory with known demand

This paper is concerned with the problem of simultaneously setting price and production levels for an exponentially decaying product. Such products suffer a loss in utility which is proportional to the total quantity of stock on hand. A continuous review, deterministic demand model is considered. The optimal ordering decision quantity is derived and its sensitivity to changes in perishability and product price is considered. The joint ordering pricing decision is also computed and consideration of parametric changes of these decisions indicates a non-monotonic response for optimal price to changes in product decay. Issues of market entry and extensions to a model with shortages are also analyzed.     

A note on a maximin disposal policy under nwue pricing

For the classical disposal model for selling an asset with unknown price distribution which is NWUE (new worse than used in expectation) with a given finite mean price, this note derives a policy which is maximin. The gain in using the maximin policy relative to the option of selling right away is convex decreasing in the continuation cost to mean price ratio. The relevant results of Derman, Lieberman and Ross also follow as a consequence of our analysis. Our theorem provides a practical justification of their main result on the cutoff bid for the disposal model subject to NWUE pricing.     

Offset Contracts as an Insurance Device in Building the National Security

A dynamic multi-stage decision-theoretic approach is introduced to establish the optimal offset and its incidence, the contract price arising from bargaining, and the scale of the acquisition. A new rationale is suggested for offsets in terms of their role as an insurance devise. Results are derived for the pricing of delivery contracts subject to offset claims and their national security implications. It is shown that the national security is strictly convex in the offset transaction. As to the incidence of the offset, the offset claim is shown to be capitalised in the delivery price. The bargaining price is shown to depend on the value of the product to be delivered for the national security, the relative negotiation power of the contracting partners and the social cost of public funds. The analysis highlights the expectation effects of offsets on the bargaining price and the scale of delivery. The results aid in explaining why offsets are widely used in procurement contracts for defence materiel. As they contribute to the national security, they should be allowed to survive and not be denied under competition laws.     

Resale price maintenance contracts with retailer sales effort: Effect of flexibility and competition

In Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) contracts, the manufacturer specifies the resale price that retailers must charge to consumers. We study the role of using a RPM contract in a market where demand is influenced by retailer sales effort. First, it is well known that RPM alone does not provide incentive for the retailer to use adequate sales effort and some form of quantity fixing may be needed to achieve channel coordination. However, when the market potential of the product is uncertain, RPM with quantity fixing is a rigid contract form. We propose and study a variety of RPM contracts with quantity fixing that offer different forms of flexibility including pricing flexibility and quantity flexibility. Second, we address a long‐time debate in both academia and practice on whether RPM is anti‐competitive in a market when two retailers compete on both price and sales effort. We show that depending on the relative intensity of price competition and sales effort competition, RPM may lead to higher or lower retail prices compared to a two‐part tariff contract, which specifies a wholesale price and a fixed fee. Further, the impact of RPM on price competition and sales effort competition is always opposite to each other. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

业主延期条件下FIDIC施工合同条件调价公式研究

调价公式作为FIDIC合同中最重要的风险分配方式之一,通过对可调价要素价格指数或价格的调整,把合同中的隐性风险在业主和承包商之间的分配比例作了明确规定.从承包商的角度,并基于业主的原因造成工期延长的条件下,对调价公式中各个组成因子及其权重对调价结果的影响进行了研究,探索把调价公式同成本管理有机结合起来,以期达到降低成本...     

Stability in a general oligopoly model

We analyze a general but parsimonious price competition model for an oligopoly in which each firm offers any number of products. The demand volumes are general piecewise affine functions of the full price vector, generated as the “regular” extension of a base set of affine functions. The model specifies a product assortment, along with their prices and demand volumes, in contrast to most commonly used demand models. We identify a fully best response operator which is monotonically increasing so that the market converges to a Nash equilibrium, when firms dynamically adjust their prices, as best responses to their competitors' prices, at least when starting in one of two price regions. Moreover, geometrically fast convergence to a common equilibrium can be guaranteed for an arbitrary starting point, under an additional condition for the price sensitivity matrix.     

Dynamic pricing in a trade-in program with replacement and new customers

Trade-in programs have been widely adopted to enhance repeat purchase from replacement customers. Considering that a market consists of replacement and new segments, we study the joint and dynamic decisions on the selling price of new product (hereafter, “selling price”) and the trade-in price involved in the program. By adopting a vertical product differentiation choice model, we investigate two scenarios in this paper. In the base model, the manufacturer has sufficiently large production capacity to fulfill the customer demand. We characterize the structural properties of the joint pricing decisions and compare them with the optimal pricing policy under regular selling. We further propose a semi-dynamic trade-in program, under which the new product is sold at a fixed price and the trade-in price can be adjusted dynamically. Numerical experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the dynamic and semi-dynamic trade-in programs. In an extended model, we consider the scenario in which the manufacturer stocks a batch of new products in the beginning of the selling horizon and the inventory cannot be replenished. Following a revenue management framework, we characterize the structural properties with respect to time period and inventory level of new products.