http://repub.eur.nl/res/concept/jel-R/ Recent publications classified by JEL Code R en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40138/ 2013-05-22T00:00:00Z This is the specification for the Power Trading Agent Competition for 2013 (Power TAC 2013). Power TAC is a competitive simulation that models a “liberalized” retail electrical energy market, where competing business entities or “brokers” offer energy services to customers through tariff contracts, and must then serve those customers by trading in a wholesale market. Brokers are challenged to maximize their profits by buying and selling energy in the wholesale and retail markets, subject to fixed costs and constraints. Costs include fees for publication and withdrawal of tariffs, and distribution fees for transporting energy to their contracted customers. Costs are also incurred whenever there is an imbalance between a broker’s total contracted energy supply and demand within a given time slot. The simulation environment models a wholesale market, a regulated distribution utility, and a population of energy customers, situated in a real location on Earth during a specific period for which weather data is available. The wholesale market is a relatively simple call market, similar to many existing wholesale electric power markets, such as Nord Pool in Scandinavia or FERC markets in North America, but unlike the FERC markets we are modeling a single region, and therefore we do not model location-marginal pricing. Customer models include households and a variety of commercial and industrial entities, many of which have production capacity (such as solar panels or wind turbines) as well as electric vehicles. All have “real-time” metering to support allocation of their hourly supply and demand to their subscribed brokers, and all are approximate utility maximizers with respect to tariff selection, although the factors making up their utility functions may include aversion to change and complexity that can retard uptake of marginally better tariff offers. The distribution utility models the regulated natural monopoly that owns the regional distribution network, and is responsible for maintenance of its infrastructure and for real-time balancing of supply and demand. The balancing process is a market-based mechanism that uses economic incentives to encourage brokers to achieve balance within their portfolios of tariff subscribers and wholesale market positions, in the face of stochastic customer behaviors and weather-dependent renewable energy sources. The broker with the highest bank balance at the end of the simulation wins. Ketter, W. Collins, J. Reddy, P. Weerdt, M.M. de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38963/ 2013-05-01T00:00:00Z For refuse collection, we estimate the cost effects of different institutional modes using panel data for almost all Dutch municipalities between 1998 and 2010. The modes we consider are private enterprises, intermunicipal cooperation, municipality-owned enterprises and in-house collection. For private companies, the cost advantage becomes substantially smaller and nonsignificant if municipal fixed effects are included. The cost advantage of intermunicipal cooperation is larger in this case than that of privatization. Dijkgraaf, E. Gradus, R.H.J.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39844/ 2013-04-12T00:00:00Z We estimate welfare losses of policies that provide on-street parking permits to residents almost free of charge in shopping districts. Our empirical results indicate that parking supply is far from perfectly price elastic, implying that there are substantial welfare losses related to under-priced parking permits. Our results suggest that the provision of residential parking permits in shopping districts induces a yearly deadweight loss of at least euro 500 per permit, which is about 30% of the supply cost of a parking place in shopping districts. Ommeren, J. van Groote, J. de Mingardo, G. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37225/ 2012-09-04T00:00:00Z This article explores the determinants of road traffic crash fatalities in India. In addition to income, the analysis considers the sociodemographic population structure, motorization levels, road and health infrastructure and road rule enforcement as potential factors. An original panel data set covering 25 Indian states is analyzed using multivariate regression analysis. Time and state fixed-effects account for unobserved heterogeneity across states and time. The rising motorization, urbanization and accompanying increase in the share of vulnerable road users, that is, pedestrians and two-wheelers, are the major drivers of road traffic crash fatalities in India. Among vulnerable road users, women form a particularly high-risk group. Higher expenditure per police officer is associated with a lower fatality rate. The results suggest that India should focus, in particular, on road infrastructure investments that allow the separation of vulnerable from other road users on improved road rule enforcement and should pay special attention to vulnerable female road users. Grimm, M. Treibich, C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34708/ 2012-07-06T00:00:00Z In the modern economy, cities are assumed to be in fierce competition over attracting foreign investments in leading sectors of the world economy. Despite the rich theoretical discourse on these 'wars', it remains unclear which territories are competing with each other over which types of investments Combining insights from international economics, international business, and urban systems literature, we develop an indicator to measure revealed competition between territories for investments based on the overlap of investment portfolios of regions. Taking competition for greenfield investments between European regions as a test subject, we identify competitive market segments, derive the competitive threat a region faces from other regions, the competitive threat regions pose to other regions, and the most important market segments in which regions compete. We show that European regions with similar locational endowments pose a fiercer competitive thre at to one another. In addition, regions that are sufficiently large and distinctive, face the smallest average competitive threat from all other regions. Burger, M.J. Knaap, G.A. van der Wall, R.S. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32879/ 2012-07-01T00:00:00Z This study examines the changing competitiveness of financial centres in mainland China and Hong Kong based on the geography of equity listing of mainland Chinese firms. Pre-listing firm characteristics are used to explore firms' motives for listing on a particular exchange and whether these motives have changed over time. The results show that Hong Kong's prominence as an international financial centre is attracting the largest and, recently, also the best performing mainland Chinese state-owned enterprises to go public. Less differentiation exists between the competitiveness of Shanghai and Shenzhen, although the renewed strategy of the Shenzhen stock exchange to attract smaller firms appears to be successful. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] Karreman, B. Knaap, G.A. van der http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31776/ 2012-02-16T00:00:00Z Empirical studies in spatial economics have shown that agglomeration economies may be a source of the uneven distribution of economic activities and economic growth across cities and regions. Both localization and urbanization economies are hypothesized to foster agglomeration and growth, but recent meta-analyses of this burgeoning body of empirical research show that the results are ambiguous. Recent overviews show that this ambiguity is fuelled by measurement issues and heterogeneity in terms of scale of time and space, aggregation, growth definitions, and the functional form of the models applied. Alternatively, in this paper, we argue that ambiguity may be due to a lack of research on firm-level performance in agglomerations. This research is necessary because the theories that underlie agglomeration economies are microeconomic in nature. Hierarchical or multilevel modeling, which allows micro levels and macro levels to be modeled simultaneously, is becoming an increasingly common practice in the social sciences. As illustrated by detailed Dutch data on firm-level productivity, employment growth and firm survival, we argue that these approaches are also suitable for reducing the ambiguity surrounding the agglomeration-firm performance relationship and for addressing spatial, sectoral and cross-level heterogeneity. Oort, F.G. van Burger, M.J. Knoben, J. Raspe, O. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26865/ 2011-11-07T00:00:00Z For refuse collection, we estimate the cost effects of different institutional modes using panel data for almost all Dutch municipalities between 1998 and 2010. The modes we consider are private contracts, intermunicipal cooperation, public provision and own collection. For private companies, the cost advantage is substantially smaller and non-significant if municipal fixed effects are included. The cost advantage of intermunicipal cooperation is larger in this case than that of privatisation. Moreover, if yearly mode dummies and mode duration are also included, we show that for 2004, 2005 and 2006 a large cost increase is visible for privatisation. Which mode offers the most cost-saving opportunity depends strongly on the year and the mode duration. For private contracts, the duration effects lead to lower costs; for municipal cooperation and public provision, there are extra costs to begin with, which disappear after 5 or 6 years. Dijkgraaf, E. Gradus, R.H.J.M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25987/ 2011-08-01T00:00:00Z Many e-tailers providing attended home delivery, especially e-grocers, offer narrow delivery time slots to ensure satisfactory customer service. The choice of delivery time slots has to balance marketing and operational considerations, which results in a complex planning problem. We study the problem of selecting the set of time slots to offer in each of the zip codes in a service region. The selection needs to facilitate cost-effective delivery routes, but also needs to ensure an acceptable level of service to the customer. We present a fully automated approach that is capable of producing high-quality delivery time slot offerings in a short amount of time. Computational experiments reveal the value of this approach and the impact of the environment on the underlying trade-offs. Savelsbergh, M.W.P. Fleischmann, M. Agatz, N.A.H. Campbell, A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25988/ 2011-08-01T00:00:00Z Many e-tailers providing attended home delivery, especially e-grocers, offer narrow delivery time slots to ensure satisfactory customer service. The choice of delivery time slots has to balance marketing and operational considerations, which results in a complex planning problem. We study the problem of selecting the set of time slots to offer in each of the zip codes in a service region. The selection needs to facilitate cost-effective delivery routes, but also needs to ensure an acceptable level of service to the customer. We present a fully automated approach that is capable of producing high-quality delivery time slot offerings in a short amount of time. Computational experiments reveal the value of this approach and the impact of the environment on the underlying trade-offs. Savelsbergh, M.W.P. Fleischmann, M. Agatz, N.A.H. Campbell, A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/26694/ 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z Empirical evidence suggests that regional disparities in income are often very wide, that these disparities do not necessarily disappear as economies grow and that these disparities are themselves a major driver of growth. We use a novel approach based on multilevel modelling to decompose the sources of inequality in household incomes in Burkina Faso. We show that differences in income across space are explained not only by the spatial concentration of households with favourable characteristics but to a large extent also by disparities in community endowments. Climatic differences across regions do matter, also, but to a much smaller extent. On the basis of the findings, it would be worth assessing the potential effects of policies which build and enhance infrastructure that connects communities complemented by interventions targeted to specific villages that particularly lag behind. Gräb, J. Grimm, M. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23650/ 2011-04-04T00:00:00Z At the edge of cities, park-and-ride (P + R) facilities pop up with the aim to intercept motorists from traveling into the city. However, these facilities also appear attractive to public transport users who start using their cars for getting to the P + R location. This paper analyzes the overall impact of P + R on total car traffic and social welfare by means of a discrete modal choice model. The results show that the distribution of individuals' preferences for car over public transport is the main determinant of this impact. P + R has a larger traffic reducing effect if more individuals prefer their car. At the same time, the shift of traffic from city to periphery improves welfare. These effects get stronger when a P + R facility provides a superior access to the mainline public transportation network. Karamychev, V.A. Reeven, P.A. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22722/ 2011-02-17T00:00:00Z Sequencing unit load retrieval requests has been studied extensively in literature for conventional single-deep automated warehousing systems. A proper sequence can greatly reduce the makespan when carrying out a group of such requests. Although the sequencing problem is NP-hard some very good heuristics exist. Surprisingly the problem has not yet been investigated for compact (multi-deep) storage systems, which have greatly increased in popularity the last decade. This paper studies how to sequence a group (or block) of storage and retrieval requests in a multi-deep automated storage system with the objective to minimize the makespan. We adapt well-known sequencing heuristics for the multi-deep system, and propose and evaluate a new heuristic: percentage priority to retrievals with shortest leg (PPR-SL). Our results show the PPR-SL heuristic consistently outperforms all the other heuristics. Generally, it can outperform the benchmark first-come first-served (FCFS) heuristic by 20-70%. The nearest neighbor (NN) heuristic that performs very well in conventional single-deep storage systems, appears to perform poorly in the multi-deep system; even worse than FCFS. In addition, based on FCFS and PPR-SL, we find robust rack dimensions yielding a short makespan, regardless of the number of storage and retrieval requests. Yu, Y. Koster, M.B.M. de http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22444/ 2011-02-11T00:00:00Z Modern society is highly dependent on a reliable railway system for workforce mobility and easy access to the cities. However, the daily operations of a large passenger railway system are subject to unexpected disruptions such as rolling stock breakdowns or malfunctioning infrastructure. In a disrupted situation, the railway operator must adapt the timetable, rolling stock and crew to the modified conditions. This adaptation of resource allocations requires the solution of complex combinatorial problems in very short time and thus represents a major challenge for the involved dispatchers. In this thesis we develop models and solution methods for the rescheduling of the rolling stock during disruptions. The models incorporate service aspects (such as seat capacity), efficiency aspects (such as number of kilometers driven by the rolling stock), and process related aspects (such as the need for night-time relocation of rolling stock). The thesis contains applications of the developed models in three different contexts. First, we present a framework for applying the rescheduling models in the highly uncertain environment of railway disruption management, and we demonstrate the trade-off between computation time and solution quality. Second, we embed the rolling stock rescheduling models in a simulation framework to account for the dynamic passenger behavior during disruptions. This framework allows us to significantly decrease the delays experienced by passengers. Third, we apply the rescheduling models to real-life planning problems from the short-term planning department of the Netherlands Railways. The models lead to a considerable speed-up of the process and significant savings. Nielsen, L.K. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22156/ 2011-01-13T00:00:00Z Over the years, after sales service business in capital goods and high tech sectors has experienced significant growth. The drivers for growth are higher service profits, increased competitions, and primary market contractions. The enablers for growth include information driven service processes and a move from one size fit all oriented warranty contracts to service level agreement offerings that differ in service prices and response guarantees. Although, these trends provide an opportunity to the service providers to match their service resources to the time varying service requirements of a heterogeneous customer base, the tools and techniques to support decision makers are lacking as of to date. In this thesis, we aim to make a small contribution in closing this gap. We gain business environment related insights of after sales service by studying it at a major computer equipment manufacturer. After sales service is a complex task that is accomplished by making a series of strategic, tactical, and operational decisions in maintenance services management, spare parts logistics management and spare part returns management. We exclusively focus on operational and tactical decisions in spare parts logistics management. We identify that customer information, or more specifically installed base information is a valuable source to support spare parts logistics decisions at the operational and tactical levels. We present an execution technique for spare parts logistics that uses installed base information to provide differentiated service to a heterogeneous customer base and results in additional profits for the service provider. Finally, we study execution decisions in spare parts logistics and spare part returns management for their interrelation. We highlight that explicit consideration of this interrelation yields additional benefits. Jalil, M.N. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21527/ 2010-11-25T00:00:00Z To add value, manufacturing and service operations depend on workers to do the job. As a result, the performance of these operations is ultimately dependent on the performance of individual workers. Simultaneously, workers are major stakeholders of the firm. Workers spend a considerable amount of time in their lives at their job and depend on that job to sustain themselves and their families. As a result, firms wishing to satisfy their primary stakeholders should consider workers’ job satisfaction in the design of their operations. Especially given that job satisfaction can promote other positive outcomes for the firm, including lower personnel turnover and accident rates. This thesis addresses the key question of how common operations management decisions may have an impact on a worker’s individual performance and his job satisfaction. In particular, we first provide a literature survey of psychology and ergonomics linking operations decision variables with performance and job satisfaction. Next, we study the effects of assigning goals on performance and work pace regulation. We identified steady work pace regulation patterns associated with challenging goals. Finally, we studied the problem of where to store items in a warehouse such that efficiency (cycle time) and well-being (discomfort) criteria are balanced. We found that both criteria have a certain degree of alignment and that simultaneous improvements in both criteria are possible. Larco Martinelli, J.A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21084/ 2010-10-21T00:00:00Z Passenger railway operators meticulously plan how to use the rolling stock and the crew in order to operate the published timetable. However, unexpected events such as infrastructure malfunctions, or weather conditions disturb the operation every day. As a consequence, significant changes, such as cancellation of trains, to the timetable must be made. If these timetable changes make the planned rolling stock and crew schedule infeasible, one speaks of a disruption. It is very important that these schedules are fixed such that no additional cancellations of trains are necessary. Nowadays this rescheduling is still done manually by the dispatchers in the control centers. In this thesis we use Operations Research techniques to develop solution approaches for crew rescheduling during disruptions. This enables us to solve the basic operational crew rescheduling problem in a short amount of computation time. Moreover, we studied an extension to the basic problem where the departure times of some trains may be delayed by some minutes. We show that this can lead to significantly better solutions for some real-life instances. Furthermore, we presented two new quasi robust optimization approaches that deal with the uncertainty in the length of the disruption. The computational study reveals that one of these approaches outperforms a naive approach in many cases. We believe that the methods developed in this thesis provided the foundation for a decision support system for railway crew rescheduling. Potthoff, D. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19234/ 2010-10-16T00:00:00Z This paper discusses how a manufacturer and its retailers interact with each other to optimize their product marketing strategies, platform product configuration and inventory policies in a VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) supply chain. The manufacturer procures raw materials from multiple suppliers to produce a family of products sold to multiple retailers. Multiple types of products are substitutable each other to end customers. The manufacturer makes its decision on raw materials’ procurement, platform product configuration, product replenishment policies to retailers with VMI, price discount rate, and advertising investment to maximize its profit. Retailers in turn consider the optimal local advertising investments and retail prices to maximize their profits. This problem is modeled as a dual simultaneous non-cooperative game (as a dual Nash game) model with two sub-games. One is between the retailers serving in competing retail markets and the other is between the manufacturer and the retailers. This paper combines analytical, iterative and GA (genetic algorithm) methods to develop a game solution algorithm to find the Nash equilibrium. A numerical example is conducted to test the proposed model and algorithm, and gain managerial implications. Yu, Y. Huang, G.Q. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20994/ 2010-10-12T00:00:00Z Planning the transport of maritime containers from the sea port to final destinations while using multiple transport modes is challenged by uncertainties regarding the time the container is released for further transport or the transit time from the port to its final destination. This paper assesses the value of information in container transport in terms of multiple performance dimensions, i.e. logistics costs, reliability, security, and emissions. The analysis is done using a single period model where a decision maker allocates arriving containers to two transport modes (slow, low price, no flexible departure times, versus fast, high price, flexible departure times). We construct a frontier of Pareto optimal decisions under each of the information scenarios and show that these frontiers move in a favorable direction when the level of information progresses. Each of the Pareto frontiers help strike the balance between the aforementioned performance dimensions. The mathematical results are illustrated using two numerical examples involving barge transport and train transport. Zuidwijk, R.A. Veenstra, A.W. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20447/ 2010-08-10T00:00:00Z This study examines the changing competitiveness of financial centres in mainland China and Hong Kong based on the geography of equity listing of mainland Chinese firms. Pre-listing firm characteristics are used to explore firms’ motives for listing on a particular exchange and whether these motives have changed over time. The results show that Hong Kong’s prominence as an international financial centre is attracting the largest and, recently, also the best performing mainland Chinese state-owned enterprises to go public. Less differentiation exists between the competitiveness of Shanghai and Shenzhen, although the renewed strategy of the Shenzhen stock exchange to attract smaller firms appears to be successful. Karreman, B. Knaap, G.A. van der