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PRACTICE AND POLICY ABSTRACT We consider the formation of a coalition when districts invest in critical IT infrastructure that, if disrupted, can cause significant damage to security, the economy, public health, or safety. The benefits from these investments can spill over to other districts. Districts choose whether to participate in a coalition, and the coalition subsequently makes IT infrastructure investment decisions for those districts that join the coalition. These inside districts have superior interoperability in their spillovers relative to outside districts. We find that inside districts' resource levels decrease with the size of the coalition, and this size depends on the coalition's economies of scale and relative interoperability. Depending on these factors, any size coalition can be an equilibrium or socially optimal. In most cases, the socially optimal coalition size is larger than the equilibrium coalition. A subsidy or tax can incentivize the equilibrium coalition size and district investment levels to be socially optimal, providing a general solution to the provisioning of critical IT infrastructure. We use the European Union's Digital COVID Certificate program providing vaccine status information and the U.S. Government's Direct Project that supports the establishment of nationwide health information exchanges to illustrate elements of our model. We consider districts that invest in critical IT infrastructure, which spill over to other districts. IT infrastructure is considered critical if its disruption can cause significant damage to security, the economy, public health, or safety. Districts choose whether to participate in a coalition noncooperatively, and the coalition subsequently makes resource investment decisions cooperatively. Districts "inside" the coalition have superior interoperability in the spillovers relative to "outside" districts. Inside districts also benefit from a coalition economy of scale and a discounted resource investment cost, and they face diseconomies of scope in the number of coalition members and their investment levels. Coalition structures include grand, partial (varying in size), minimal (two members), and singleton, and we consider the formation of only one coalition. We find that inside districts' resource levels decrease with coalition size. Even with homogeneous districts, any size coalition can be an equilibrium depending on the coalition economy of scale and the relative interoperability of resources in inside versus outside districts. The equilibrium coalition size is increasing in the economy of scale and decreasing in relative interoperability. Similarly, any size coalition can be socially optimal depending on the coalition economy of scale and relative interoperability. The socially optimal coalition size is also increasing in the economy of scale and decreasing in relative interoperability. In most cases, the socially optimal coalition size is larger than the equilibrium coalition. A subsidy or tax can incentivize the equilibrium coalition size and district resource levels to be socially optimal, providing a general solution to the provisioning of critical IT infrastructure. We use the European Union's Digital COVID Certificate program providing vaccine status information and the U.S. Government's Direct Project that supports the establishment of nationwide health information exchanges to illustrate elements of our model. History: Juan Feng, Senior Editor; Yifan Dou, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada [Grant 435-2016-0431]. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.0463. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the role of personalized pricing (PP) on product differentiation when PP is costly to implement. Using a stylized yet commonly used formulation, we find that when firms decide on positioning before deciding on PP implementation, PP implementation cost affects not only the amount of differentiation firms choose in their positioning, firm profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare, but also whether firms implement PP. When PP implementation cost is low, firms cannot help but to implement PP and engage in direct price competition. Moreover, firms implementing PP reduce their differentiation, further intensifying price competition, and are worse off. When PP implementation cost is moderate, firms position to reduce their differentiation to commit to not implementing PP, again aggravating price competition. In contrast, when PP implementation cost is higher, firms increase their differentiation due to the threat of PP but do not implement PP. As a result, the availability of PP improves firm profits, even though firms do not implement PP. However, if differentiation is restricted, then PP availability cannot improve firm profits. If an information seller sets the PP implementation cost, then it sets the cost low. Consequently, firms implement PP and are worse off. We also find that when firms decide whether to implement PP before deciding on positioning, they never implement PP. This is the case when PP implementation is complex, and differentiation can be affected by short-run advertising and promotion. Finally, we show that banning PP can benefit consumers when accounting for changes in firm positioning. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems. Funding: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council [Grant 21500920]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.02740. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. Capacity is the maximum short-run output with capital in place under normal operations, and capital investment increases capacity. Excess capacity can be used as an economic strategy for entry [...]

Abstract. The open internet is plagued by congestion that restricts the development of sophisticated internet-based services, as was predicted in early work on priority pricing. Broadband and edge providers have [...]

In this paper, we analyze the choice of interoperability approach for the provision of disaster management systems (DMS) when resources are distributed across districts, and in times of disaster resources can be shared. The degree to which sharing (a spillover) can be coordinated efficiently depends on resource interoperability. In this public sector setting, we model the provisioning of DMS as the choice between interoperability approaches; in decreasing order of centralization they are integrated, unified, and federated. A unique feature of our setting is that the interoperability approach is a collective decision by districts. Districts choose their own DMS resources and interoperability effort, and face different interoperability efficiency and technology misfit costs depending on the interoperability approach. We find that any approach can be an equilibrium depending on interoperability efficiency, and that when the social optimum deviates from the equilibrium the socially optimal approach is more centralized. When subsidies and taxes are implemented, the socially optimal interoperability approach can be achieved with budget balance. When only subsidies can be used, the socially optimal approach can be achieved but only under certain interoperability efficiency and misfit cost conditions is there a net social gain. Having an initial level of interoperability causes the equilibrium interoperability approach to shift toward a less centralized one. Our results generalize to other settings characterized by interoperability concerns, collective decisions, and spillovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a trade-off balancing (TOB) heuristic in a no-wait flow shop to minimise the weighted sum of maximum completion time ( C max ) and total completion time (TCT) based on machine idle times. We introduce a factorisation scheme to construct the initial sequence based on current and future idle times at the operational level. In addition, we propose a novel estimation method to establish the mathematical relationship between the objectives min( C max ) and min(TCT) at the production line level. To evaluate the performance of the TOB heuristic, computational experiments are conducted on the classic Taillard's benchmark and one-year historical data from University of Kentucky HealthCare (UKHC). The computational results show that minimisations of C max and TCT yield inconsistent scheduling sequences, and these two sequences are relatively uncorrelated. We also show that our TOB heuristic performs better than the best existing heuristics with the same computational complexity and generates stable performances in balancing trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logistics outsourcing has increased with the commercialization of the Internet, implying a reduction in the corresponding transaction costs. The Internet--with its universal connectivity and open standards-radically enhanced information technology (IT) [...]

Taking advantage of the opportunities created by the price adjusted performance improvement in information technology (IT) depends in part on the ability of IT capital to substitute for other inputs [...]

We use the under-recognized income accounting identity to provide an important theoretical basis for using the Cobb-Douglas production function in IT productivity analyses. Within the income accounting identity we partition [...]