Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

One goal of every business is to save money, and building strategies that work to minimize spending and maximize profit is key to the success of a company. Cidewalk is a mobile advertisement company that wished to implement an optimal bidding strategy to help reduce the company's cost and in turn maximize their profits. To accomplish this goal we collected market data which was then analyzed to identify the distribution of second best bids, which is the price Cidewalk pays for an advertisement space by bidding in a Vickrey auction. The optimal bidding model was then implemented through a simulation together with Bayesian updating methods to ensure the model would be responsive to changes in the market. The model's performance was evaluated through the simulation and it was discovered that throughout one day the implemented model yielded 17% savings when compared to Cidewalk's current bidding model.

One goal of every business is to save money, and building strategies that work to minimize spending and maximize profit is key to the success of a company. Cidewalk is a mobile advertisement company that wished to implement an optimal bidding strategy to help reduce the company's cost and in turn maximize their profits. To accomplish this goal we collected market data which was then analyzed to identify the distribution of second best bids, which is the price Cidewalk pays for an advertisement space by bidding in a Vickrey auction. The optimal bidding model was then implemented through a simulation together with Bayesian updating methods to ensure the model would be responsive to changes in the market. The model's performance was evaluated through the simulation and it was discovered that throughout one day the implemented model yielded 17% savings when compared to Cidewalk's current bidding model.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2006--Karlsruhe.

Heidelberg, Univ., Dipl.-Arb. 2007.

We test our hypotheses on 186 participants designing their own scarves with an MC toolkit. After completing the process, they submitted binding bids for "their" products in Vickrey auctions. We therefore observe real buying behavior, not merely stated intentions. We find that the subjective value of a self-designed product (i.e., one's bid in the course of the auction) is indeed not only impacted by the preference fit the customer expects it to deliver, but also by (1) the process enjoyment the customer reports, (2) the interaction of preference fit and process enjoyment, and (3) the interaction of preference fit and perceived process effort. In addition to its main effect, we interpret preference fit as a moderator of the valuegenerating effect of process evaluation: In cases where the outcome of the process is perceived as positive (high preference fit), the customer also interprets process effort as a positive accomplishment, and this positive affect adds (further) value to the product. It appears that the perception of the self-design process as a good or bad experience is partly constructed on the basis of the outcome of the process. In the opposite case (low preference fit), effort creates a negative affect which further reduces the subjective value of the product. Likewise, process enjoyment is amplified by preference fit, although enjoyment also has a significant main effect, which means that regardless of the outcome, customers attribute higher value to a self-designed product if they enjoy the process. The importance of the self-design process found in this study bears clear relevance for companies which offer or plan to offer MC systems. It is not sufficient to design MC toolkits in such a way that they allow customers to design products according to their preferences. The affect caused by this process is also highly important. Toolkits should therefore stimulate positive affective reactions and at the same time keep negative affect to a minimum. (authors' abstract)

The primary argument in favor of mass customization is the delivery of superior customer value. Using willingness-to-pay (WTP) measurements, Franke & Piller (2004) have recently shown that customers designing their own watches with design toolkits are willing to pay premiums of more than 100% (DWTP). In the course of three studies, we found that this type of value increment is not a singular occurrence but might rather be a general phenomenon, as we again found average DWTPs of more than 100% among customers designing their own cell phone covers, T-shirts, and scarves. Building on this, we discuss the sources of benefits that are likely to explain this tremendous value increment. We argue that compared to conventional standard products, a mass-customized product might render the following utilitarian and hedonic benefits: (1) First, the output might be beneficial as self-designed products offer a much closer fit between individual needs and product characteristics. In addition to this mere functional benefit, extra value might also stem from (2) the perceived uniqueness of the self-designed product. As the customer takes on the role of an active codesigner, there may also be two general 'do-it-yourself effects': (3) First, the process of designing per se is likely to allow the customer to meet hedonic or experiential needs (process benefit). (4) Customers may also be likely to value the output of self-design more highly if they take pride in having created something on their own (instead of traditionally buying something created by somebody else). This is referred to as the 'pride of authorship' effect. (author's abstract)

This paper seeks to find whether the spectrum auctions in Sweden have been conducted efficiently and if there is a de facto model that suits all auctions. The efficiency is conditions that emphasise truthful bidding, price discovery and limits collusive behaviour. The paper compares three different auction models used in Sweden, a beauty contest used in the allocation of 3G spectrums, and the auction model selected for the upcoming 5G spectrum auction. The auction models are as follows: first and second-price sealed-bid auction, SMRA and CCA. We found that beauty contests should not be used in any spectrum allocation as it did not meet the criteria of efficiency outlined in this paper. The first-price sealed-bid auction is not a suitable format for spectrum auctions. According to the theory, it generates equivalent revenues on average as the second-price format, which shows a higher degree of efficient allocation. We found that depending on the blocks sold, both SMRA and CCA can result in somewhat efficient results, but they are not suitable for a single object auction. We found that no de facto auction format is suitable for every spectrum auction to be conducted in the future, but instead that the auction format is dependent on the characteristics of the individual auctions.

Smart devices have become one of the fundamental communication and computing devices in people's everyday lives over the past decade. Their various sensors and wireless connectivity have paved the way for a new application area called mobile crowdsensing where sensing services are provided by using the sensor outputs collected from smart devices. A mobile crowdsensing system's service quality heavily depends on the participation of smart device users who probably expect to be compensated in return for their participation. Therefore, mobile crowdsensing applications need incentive mechanisms to motivate such people into participating. In this thesis, we first defined a reverse auction based incentive mechanism for a representative mobile crowdsensing system. Then, we integrated the Vickrey-Clarke- Groves mechanism into the initial incentive mechanism so as to investigate whether truthful bidding would become the dominant strategy in the resulting incentive mechanism. We demonstrated by theoretical analysis that overbidding was the dominant strategy in the base incentive mechanism, whereas truthful bidding was the dominant strategy in the derived incentive mechanism when the VCG mechanism was applicable. Finally, we conducted simulations of both incentive mechanisms in order to measure the fairness of service prices and the fairness of cumulative participant earnings using Jain's fairness index. We observed that both the fairness of service prices and the fairness of cumulative participant earnings were generally better in the derived incentive mechanism when the VCG mechanism was applied. We also found that at least 70% of service requests had fair prices, while between 5% and 85% of participants had fair cumulative earnings in both incentive mechanisms.

Cette thèse porte sur les modèles d'équilibres dynamiques sur un réseau de transport et leurs applications à l'affectation de trafic. Elle tente d'en propose une formulation à la fois générale et mathématiquement rigoureuse. Une attention particulière est accordée à la représentation de la demande de transport. Plus spécifiquement, la modélisation de l'hétérogénéité dans les préférences des usagers d'un réseau de transport, ainsi que des stratégies de choix d'horaire dans les déplacements, occupe une place importante dans notre approche. Une caractéristique de ce travail est son fort recours au formalisme mathématique; cela nous permet d'obtenir une formulation concise et micro-économiquement cohérente des réseaux de transport et de la demande de transport dans un contexte dynamique. Cette thèse traite aussi de méthodes de résolution en lien avec les modèles d'équilibres dynamiques. Nous établissons analytiquement des équilibres sur des réseaux de petites tailles afin d'améliorer la connaissance qualitative de l'interaction entre offre et demande dans ce contexte. L'intuition retirée de ces exercices nous permet de concevoir des méthodes numériques de calculs qui peuvent être appliquées à des réseaux de transport de grande taille. Tout au long de la thèse plusieurs applications économiques de ces travaux sont explorées. Toutes traitent des politiques de tarification de la congestion et de leurs évaluation, notamment lorsque les automobilistes sont susceptibles d'ajuster leurs horaires de départ. En particulier une politique tarifaire conçue pour limiter la congestion lors des grands départs de vacances est testée. Elle consiste à mettre en place un péage sur le réseau autoroutier variant selon l'heure de la journée mais aussi de jour en jour. Ce type de péage est particulièrement intéressant pour les exploitants car il leur permet d'influencer à la fois sur l'heure et le jour de départ des vacanciers. Les méthodes développées dans cette thèse permettent d'établir que les gains en termes de réduction de la congestion sont substantiels.