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Autores principales: Liu, Feng, Chen, Zhi, Wang, Ruodu, Wang, Shuming
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07008
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author Liu, Feng
Chen, Zhi
Wang, Ruodu
Wang, Shuming
author_facet Liu, Feng
Chen, Zhi
Wang, Ruodu
Wang, Shuming
contents Problem definition: We consider a newsvendor problem with unknown demand distribution, where we distinguish ambiguity under which the newsvendor does not differentiate demand distributions of common characteristics and misspecification under which such characteristics might be misspecified. Methodology/results: The newsvendor hedges against ambiguity and misspecification by maximizing the worst-case expected profit regularized by a distribution's distance to an ambiguity set. Focusing on the popular mean-variance ambiguity set and optimal-transport cost for the misspecification, we show that the decision criterion of misspecification aversion possesses insightful interpretations as distributional transforms. We derive the closed-form optimal order quantity that generalizes the solution of the Scarf model under only ambiguity aversion. We establish the finite-sample performance guarantee, which consists of two parts: in-sample optimal value and out-of-sample effect of misspecification that can be further decoupled into estimation error and distribution shift. We also extend the framework to multiple products, distributional characteristics specified via optimal transport, and misspecification measured by total variation distance. Managerial implications: The closed-form solution highlights the impact of misspecification aversion: the optimal order quantity under misspecification aversion can decrease as the price or variance increases, reversing the monotonicity of that under only ambiguity aversion. Hence, ambiguity and misspecification, as different layers of distributional uncertainty, can result in distinct operational consequences. The finite-sample performance guarantee theoretically justifies the necessity of incorporating misspecification aversion in a non-stationary environment, which is also well demonstrated in our experiments with real-world data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_07008
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Newsvendor under Ambiguity and Misspecification
Liu, Feng
Chen, Zhi
Wang, Ruodu
Wang, Shuming
Optimization and Control
Problem definition: We consider a newsvendor problem with unknown demand distribution, where we distinguish ambiguity under which the newsvendor does not differentiate demand distributions of common characteristics and misspecification under which such characteristics might be misspecified. Methodology/results: The newsvendor hedges against ambiguity and misspecification by maximizing the worst-case expected profit regularized by a distribution's distance to an ambiguity set. Focusing on the popular mean-variance ambiguity set and optimal-transport cost for the misspecification, we show that the decision criterion of misspecification aversion possesses insightful interpretations as distributional transforms. We derive the closed-form optimal order quantity that generalizes the solution of the Scarf model under only ambiguity aversion. We establish the finite-sample performance guarantee, which consists of two parts: in-sample optimal value and out-of-sample effect of misspecification that can be further decoupled into estimation error and distribution shift. We also extend the framework to multiple products, distributional characteristics specified via optimal transport, and misspecification measured by total variation distance. Managerial implications: The closed-form solution highlights the impact of misspecification aversion: the optimal order quantity under misspecification aversion can decrease as the price or variance increases, reversing the monotonicity of that under only ambiguity aversion. Hence, ambiguity and misspecification, as different layers of distributional uncertainty, can result in distinct operational consequences. The finite-sample performance guarantee theoretically justifies the necessity of incorporating misspecification aversion in a non-stationary environment, which is also well demonstrated in our experiments with real-world data.
title Newsvendor under Ambiguity and Misspecification
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07008