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Instability of Dynamic Inventory Systems

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Author Info
Jia Yan
John Liu () (School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University)
Abstract

We show in this paper that instability is an intrinsic cause of production variability in a dynamic inventory system. We first show that a unique stationary optimal policy exists for both full-backlog and lost-sales case and under the policy a firm replenishes its inventory to a constant target level. We then express the constant inventory target as the unique steady state of the Euler’s equation governing the dynamics of target inventories. We finally show that the Euler’s equation is locally instable at the steady state but a sufficiently large refund to unsold inventory in lost-sales case can stabilize the inventory system.

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File URL: http://www.ses.wsu.edu/PDFFiles/WorkingPapers/Yan/volatility_workpaper.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function: First version, 2008
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University in its series Working Papers with number 2008-23.

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Length: 24 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wsu:wpaper:yan-4

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Related research
Keywords: stability; production variability; dynamic inventory system; full-backlog; lost-sales;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
D92 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice and Growth, Investment, or Financing

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Benveniste, L M & Scheinkman, J A, 1979. "On the Differentiability of the Value Function in Dynamic Models of Economics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 727-32, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Kahn, James A, 1992. "Why Is Production More Volatile Than Sales? Theory and Evidence on the Stockout-Avoidance Motive for Inventory-Holding," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 481-510, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Blinder, Alan S & Maccini, Louis J, 1991. "Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 73-96, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. George J. Hall & John Rust, 1999. "An Empirical Model of Inventory Investment by Durable Commodity Intermediaries," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1228, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Kandel, Eugene, 1996. "The Right to Return," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 329-56, April.
  6. Alexandre Scheinkman, Jose, 1976. "On optimal steady states of n-sector growth models when utility is discounted," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 11-30, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Kahn, James A, 1987. "Inventories and the Volatility of Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 667-79, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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