Handbook of Newsvendor Problems, 2012 Models, Extensions and Applications International Series in Operations Research & Management Science Series, Vol. 176

As a fundamental problem in stochastic inventory control, the newsvendor problem has been studied since the 18th century in the economic literature, and has been widely used to analyze supply chains in fashion and seasonal product industries. Since the 1950s, the newsvendor problem has been extensively studied in operations research and extended to model a variety of real-life problems. The simplest and most elementary version of the newsvendor problem is an optimal stocking problem in which a newsvendor needs to decide how many newspapers to order for future demand, where the future demand is uncertain and follows a stationary distribution. Research in this area has greatly increased over the last few years, and now the Handbook of Newsvendor Problems: Models, Extensions and Applications captures the state of the art.

The handbook consists of two sections -- Models and Extensions, and Applications. Each section includes many interesting works in the respective domain. Section I presents papers on topics like the multi-product newsvendor problems; the newsvendor problem with law invariant coherent measures of risk; a Copula approach to inventory pooling problems with newsvendor products; repeated newsvendor games with transshipments; cooperative newsvendor games; an economic interpretation for the price-setting newsvendor problem; newsvendor models with alternative risk preferences within expected utility theory and prospect theory frameworks; and newsvendor problems with VaR and CVaR consideration. Section II presents papers on such topics as a two-period newsvendor problem for closed-loop supply chain analysis; the remanufacturing newsvendor problem; inventory centralization in a newsvendor setting when shortage costs differ; production planning on an unreliable machine for multiple items; analysis of the newsvendor problem under carbon emissions policies; optimal decisions of the manufacturer and distributor in a fresh product supply chain involving long distance transportation; a newsvendor perspective on profit target setting for multiple divisions; and a portfolio approach to multi-product newsvendor problem with budget constraint.

This well-balanced handbook presents a wealth of theoretical results from different perspectives. With contributions from many of the leading researchers in the field, the Handbook of Newsvendor Problems: Models, Extensions and Applications is a timely addition to the literature and consolidates all the new and exciting works related to the newsvendor problem into one high quality source.