————— 2012 New Projects and Works in Progress ————-
“Equilibrium in Social Decision Making, ” with Joffre Swait
“Adverse Effects of Media Exposure on Donations,” with Chris Groening, Karen Page Winterich and Vikas Mittal
“Donation Policy Optimization,” with Murat Kurt and Osman Ozaltin
“Robust Optimization of Donation Prices,” with Murat Kurt and Osman Ozaltin
“Optimal Resource Allocation for Fundraising in Non-contractual Settings,” with Jennifer Shang
“Social Buying with Herding Behavior ” with Jennifer Shang
“How do Blogs Arise?”
————— Earlier Working Papers ————-
““Hedging Customer Portfolios,” with Christopher Groening and Vikas Mittal (manuscript available for review)
Financial analysts have been creating and optimizing stock portfolios for decades. When addressing the
value of customers, firms and academics rarely account for the role that risk plays in customer pre-tax
profit; they look at the customers’ expected value only. Customer segmentation methods tend to focus on
assigning customers to the ideal segment rather than concentrating on their financial (risk and reward)
characteristics and the ideal number of customers per segment. In this paper, we synthesize theories from
different disciplines and propose a methodology that allows firm management to create a customer
portfolio maximized for their levels of risk. We illustrate the benefits that firms can achieve from weighting
the customer segments optimally based upon their risk-reward impact on the firm’s overall customer
portfolio. Our method can be used to assist investors in their valuation of a firm or to value an acquisition
that has a primary goal of increasing the customer base. We use a data set of 1901 PNC bank customers,
and show measurable increase in profit from implementing customer portfolio management practices.
OTHER PROJECTS
“Social Networks and Media Bias”
In this study, I am investigating the impact of social network integration on media bias and media profits taking into consideration the influence of the social network on advertising revenue.