In this paper we consider the Newsvendor Problem. Intuition may lead to the hypothesis that in this stochastic inventory problem a higher demand variability results in larger variances and in higher costs. In a recent paper, Song (1994a) has proved that the intuition is correct for many demand distributions that are commonly used in practice, such as for the normal distribution function. However, this paper shows that there exist demand distributions for which the intuition is misleading, i.e., for which larger variances occur in combination with lower costs. To characterize these demand distributions we use stochastic dominance relations.
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How Larger Demand Variability May Lead to Lower Costs in the Newsvendor Problem
Ad Ridder
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
Erwin van der Laan
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
Marc Salomon
Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands,
Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands,
Published Online: December 1, 1998
Page Range:
934 - 936
Abstract






