Upcoming Events

More upcoming events to be announced soon.

AdONE Seminar - Monday, April 22, 2024: Prof. Andy Sun (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Dual Dynamic Programming for Multistage Stochastic and Distributionally Robust Optimization: Adaptive Algorithms and Complexity Analysis

Dual dynamic programming (DDP) is a classic algorithm for solving multistage stochastic linear programming. In recent years, several significant progresses have been made. The DDP framework has been significantly extended to tackle multistage stochastic mixed integer linear programming with exact cutting plane methods. The classic convergence type results have been refined to yield, for the first time, sharp iteration complexity results with nearly matching upper and lower complexity bounds. As a consequence, some open question has been answered, e.g. how does the iteration complexity of the DDP algorithm depend on the number of stages, polynomially or exponentially? (the answer is quadratically or even linearly). A new type of adaptive DDP algorithm is proposed for the more general framework of multistage distributionally robust optimization, which shows significant improvement in computational performance over the classic DDP algorithm. In this talk, we will survey these exciting advances and their applications in energy system optimization.

Date: April 22, 2024

Time: 5 pm, s.t.

Place: Online

 

AdONE Seminar - Thursday, May 2, 2024: Prof. Peter Cramton (University of Maryland and Universität zu Köln)

Date: May 2, 2024

Time: 5 pm, s.t.

Place: Boltzmannstr. 5, 85748 Garching, room: Hörsaal 2, "Interims I", 5620.01.102

 

AdONE Seminar - Monday, May 13, 2024: Prof. Kejia Hu (University of Oxford)

The Impact of Financial Incentives in Instant Retail: An Empirical Investigation

Problem definition: Delivery speed is crucial for service quality in instant retail. To address the frequently occurring delays due to driver shortage, platforms employ financial incentives to dynamically reallocate drivers. Considering the scarcity of empirical research on financial incentives in instant retail, this study examines its direct-impact and spillover-impact from a network perspective, using large transactional datasets from a leading instant retail firm in China.

Methodology and results: First, we employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the influence of financial incentives on focal stores’ order acceptance speed. Our results show that financial incentives significantly reduce the order acceptance duration by 23.66%. Second, from a network perspective, we employ propensity score matching to examine the spillover-impact of the neighboring stores’ financial incentives on the focal store. Interestingly, our findings reveal opposing impacts that depend on the focal store’s status. Specifically, the nearest store’s financial incentives cause a longer driver’s order acceptance duration at the focal store without financial incentives; however, the opposite spillover-effect is observed at the focal store with financial incentives. To better understand the underlying mechanisms, we identify the siphon effect and clustering effect as the key drivers of this phenomenon. Our counterfactual analysis suggests that compared

to the practice, optimizing financial incentives considering network effects could reduce the associated cost by an average of 16.23%, while also decreasing total order acceptance duration by an average of 1.45%.

Managerial implications: Our study provides essential insights for crowdsourced delivery platforms in instant retail. To enhance order acceptance speed, it’s critical for platforms to extend incentives beyond focal stores and capitalize on surrounding ones to promote a clustering effect, while being mindful of the potential siphon effect. In addition, platforms should consider the interplay between nearby stores, particularly store type consistency and distance, when formulating incentive strategies to boost operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Date: May 13, 2024

Time: 5 pm, s.t.

Place: Arcisstr. 21, 80333 München, room 2770 (Hörsaal 0507.02.770)

 

AdONE Seminar - Monday, June 3, 2024: Prof. Laura Sanità (Bocconi University)

Date: June 3, 2024

Time: 5 pm, s.t.

Place: Garching, room tba