summer intern : paulo oliveira vince : here is the information that i have on paulo . he would be slated
to work for the summer with april hodgeson and matt harris on how streaming
media products may add value to advertising or some related area .
actually , he would also be a good fit for helping to think ways to analyze
our enron on - line data . i have asked if he can send a resume . in the
mean time , most of his relevant information is attached below .
- - stinson
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - forwarded by stinson gibner / hou / ect on 02 / 17 / 2000
11 : 14 am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
paulo rocha e oliveira on 02 / 10 / 2000 12 : 04 : 56 pm
to : " stinson gibner "
cc :
subject : re : trip to houston
stinson ,
thank you for your e - mail . my phone number is ( 617 ) 492 - 9551 .
i graduated from princeton university in 1996 ( mathematics ) , and came
straight to mit for a
ph . d . in operations management at the sloan schoolof management . in my first
three years i took all the required coursework in mathematics ,
optimization , stochastic processes , etc . , as well as a number of courses in
psychology ( at mit and harvard ) . i am working with prof . gabriel bitran ,
and i am interested in the mathematical modeling of service operations . in
particular , i am interested in the interaction between customers and
companies ( hence the interest in psychology ) . the ( tentative ) title of my
phd thesis is " pricing substitute products on the internet " , and i am
sending you the summary which i sent to tom gros a few weeks ago that will
give you an idea of what this research is about .
thanks again , and i ' m looking forward to meeting you and your research
group next week .
paulo
pricing substitute products on the internet
objective :
to develop new tools to decide pricing policies for goods and services sold
on
the internet .
motivation :
this research is motivated by the fact that traditional choice and
optimization
models are not appropriate for internet - related businesses . the technological
innovations associated with the internet brought about an overload of
information
which inevitably affects the ways in which consumers make choices .
furthermore ,
companies have a great deal of influence on how much information consumers can
have access to .
the problem of pricing substitute products is an important strategic issue
faced
by internet companies . consumers usually search for generic products ( e . g .
vcrs
or computers ) without knowing exactly what they will buy . companies can show
different products and different prices to each consumer . this type of
flexibility
was not available until the internet came about .
the problem of pricing substitute products is not unique to the internet . the
methodology developed by this research should be transferable to a number of
other settings , such as pricing services . services are unique , and there are
many cases where customers will only buy one of many services offered by a
given company . our model will help companies decide which services to offer
to which customers and how much to charge for these services .
research strategy :
our research strategy is to divide the pricing problem into two components
which can be combined to generate optimal pricing strategies . these
components are choice models and optimization models .
choice models :
choice models describe how customers make choices . the management literature
draws on two main sources for these models : psychology and economics . the
common approach in psychology models is to use what are called heuristic
elimination methods . these methods consist of the elimination of options
based on the sequential elimination of features until only one choice
remains .
these methods tend to be very context - specific and do not lend themselves very
easily to mathematical analysis . economists focus on utility - maximing models
that are significantly more mathematically tractable than psychological
models .
the most common economic model of choice is the logit model . the problem with
these types of models is that they are not very accurate reflections of how
consumer make choices on the internet . the first step in our research will
be
to develop choice models that capture the interactions going on between
customers
and companies on the internet .
optimization :
traditionally , the optimization problem consists of maximizing revenue over a
certain planning horizon . on the internet , the problem of maximizing revenue
still exists , but there is also a need to learn about customers . short term
profit is based on sales , but long term profit is based on how well you know
your customers and are able to retain them . the optimization problem must
therefore include a short term component ( sales ) and a long term component
( learning ) .
summer intern : paulo oliveira
vince : here is the information that i have on paulo . he would be slated
to work for the summer with april hodgeson and matt harris on how streaming
media products may add value to advertising or some related area .
actually , he would also be a good fit for helping to think ways to analyze
our enron on - line data . i have asked if he can send a resume . in the
mean time , most of his relevant information is attached below .
- - stinson
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - forwarded by stinson gibner / hou / ect on 02 / 17 / 2000
11 : 14 am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
paulo rocha e oliveira on 02 / 10 / 2000 12 : 04 : 56 pm
to : " stinson gibner "
cc :
subject : re : trip to houston
stinson ,
thank you for your e - mail . my phone number is ( 617 ) 492 - 9551 .
i graduated from princeton university in 1996 ( mathematics ) , and came
straight to mit for a
ph . d . in operations management at the sloan schoolof management . in my first
three years i took all the required coursework in mathematics ,
optimization , stochastic processes , etc . , as well as a number of courses in
psychology ( at mit and harvard ) . i am working with prof . gabriel bitran ,
and i am interested in the mathematical modeling of service operations . in
particular , i am interested in the interaction between customers and
companies ( hence the interest in psychology ) . the ( tentative ) title of my
phd thesis is " pricing substitute products on the internet " , and i am
sending you the summary which i sent to tom gros a few weeks ago that will
give you an idea of what this research is about .
thanks again , and i ' m looking forward to meeting you and your research
group next week .
paulo
pricing substitute products on the internet
objective :
to develop new tools to decide pricing policies for goods and services sold
on
the internet .
motivation :
this research is motivated by the fact that traditional choice and
optimization
models are not appropriate for internet - related businesses . the technological
innovations associated with the internet brought about an overload of
information
which inevitably affects the ways in which consumers make choices .
furthermore ,
companies have a great deal of influence on how much information consumers can
have access to .
the problem of pricing substitute products is an important strategic issue
faced
by internet companies . consumers usually search for generic products ( e . g .
vcrs
or computers ) without knowing exactly what they will buy . companies can show
different products and different prices to each consumer . this type of
flexibility
was not available until the internet came about .
the problem of pricing substitute products is not unique to the internet . the
methodology developed by this research should be transferable to a number of
other settings , such as pricing services . services are unique , and there are
many cases where customers will only buy one of many services offered by a
given company . our model will help companies decide which services to offer
to which customers and how much to charge for these services .
research strategy :
our research strategy is to divide the pricing problem into two components
which can be combined to generate optimal pricing strategies . these
components are choice models and optimization models .
choice models :
choice models describe how customers make choices . the management literature
draws on two main sources for these models : psychology and economics . the
common approach in psychology models is to use what are called heuristic
elimination methods . these methods consist of the elimination of options
based on the sequential elimination of features until only one choice
remains .
these methods tend to be very context - specific and do not lend themselves very
easily to mathematical analysis . economists focus on utility - maximing models
that are significantly more mathematically tractable than psychological
models .
the most common economic model of choice is the logit model . the problem with
these types of models is that they are not very accurate reflections of how
consumer make choices on the internet . the first step in our research will
be
to develop choice models that capture the interactions going on between
customers
and companies on the internet .
optimization :
traditionally , the optimization problem consists of maximizing revenue over a
certain planning horizon . on the internet , the problem of maximizing revenue
still exists , but there is also a need to learn about customers . short term
profit is based on sales , but long term profit is based on how well you know
your customers and are able to retain them . the optimization problem must
therefore include a short term component ( sales ) and a long term component
( learning ) .