Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The proposed research program deals with: - The modeling of industrial systems involving few players having interdependent payoffs. - The determination and the computation of equilibrium solutions for systems characterized by a non cooperative mode of play. - The design of mechanisms, that satisfy certain required properties (e.g., optimality, fairness), for sharing and sustaining over time cooperative outcomes when coordination of strategies is feasible. The research addresses theoretical and computational issues as well as applied problems posed in the areas of: - Environmental management (e.g., coordination of emission strategies among countries, regions or provinces). - Distribution channels (e.g., conflict and cooperation in marketing networks, remanufacturing and supply chain coordination, etc.). As the problems involve few actors and are highly dynamic, the natural methodological frameworks are those of dynamic game theory and mathematical programming. The contribution of this research program is twofold. At the conceptual level, understanding how an environmental agreement can be built and sustained is a key concern for academic researchers, policy makers and society in general. Recent events have shown that designing agreements so that players do not have an incentive to defect is crucial for protecting the environment for future generations. Similarly, devising mechanisms aimed at eliminating the inefficiencies inherent to a lack of coordination in supply chains is of clear value to business, as well as to scholars with an interest in mechanism design. At the algorithmic level, the developments will be useful to researchers working in the areas of the proposal and to researchers working in other areas, on problems with similar mathematical structures.