Omar Besbes

Biography

Omar Besbes's primary research interests are in the area of data-driven decision-making with a focus on applications in e-commerce, pricing and revenue management, online advertising, operations management and general service systems. His research has been recognized by multiple prizes, including the 2019 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize, the 2017 M&SOM society Young Scholar Prize, the 2013 M&SOM best paper award and the 2012 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Management Science and Operations Research.

He has taught core MBA courses in Operations Management and Business Analytics, an MBA elective on advanced Business Analytics, as well as various Ph.D. seminars on stochastic models, revenue management and data-driven decision-making. He is a recipient of the Dean's award for teaching excellence in the core at Columbia Business School.

Omar is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (France) and received a M.Sc. from Stanford University in 2000 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2008. Before joining Columbia, he was on the faculty at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Research interests

Development of data-driven algorithms with applications in pricing, market design, and supply chain management. Focus on “data rich” and limited/“small” data environments.

Education

• Ph.D. Columbia Business School (2003 — 2008)
• M.Sc. Stanford University (1999 — 2000)
• École Polytechnique (1997 — 1999)

Companies

• Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business Columbia Business School (2009)
• Assistant Professor The Wharton School (2007 — 2009)
• Project Manager Siemens (2000 — 2003)

Research

Journal articles

• Spatial Capacity Planning In Operations Research (forthcoming)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Francisco Castro, Ilan Lobel

• Static Pricing: Universal Guarantees for Reusable Resources In Operations Research (forthcoming)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Adam N. Elmachtoub, Yunjie Sun

• Surge Pricing and Its Spatial Supply Response In Management Science (2021)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Francisco Castro, Ilan Lobel

• Prior-Independent Optimal Auctions In Management Science (2020)
  Coauthor(s): Amine Allouah, Omar Besbes

• Optimal Exploration-Exploitation in a Multi-armed Bandit Problem with Non-stationary Rewards In Stochastic Systems (2019)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Yonatan Gur, Assaf Zeevi

• Contracting in Medical Equipment Maintenance Services: An Empirical Investigation In Management Science (2019)
  Coauthor(s): Tian Chan, Francis de Vericourt, Omar Besbes

• Dynamic Mechanism Design with Budget Constrained Buyers Under Limited Commitment In Operations Research (2019)
  Coauthor(s): Santiago Balseiro, Omar Besbes

• Dynamic Pricing under Debt: Spiraling Distortions and Efficiency Losses In Management Science (2018)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Dan Iancu, Nikos Trichakis

• On Information Distortions in Online Ratings In Operations Research (2018)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Marco Scarsini

• Product Assortment and Price Competition under Multinomial Logit Demand In Production and Operations Management (2016)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Denis Saure

• Optimization in Online Content Recommendation Services: Beyond Click-Through-Rates In Manufacturing & Service Operations (2016)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Yonatan Gur, Assaf Zeevi

• On the (Surprising) Sufficiency of Linear Models for Dynamic Pricing with Demand Learning In Management Science (2015)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Assaf Zeevi

• Repeated Auctions with Budgets in Ad Exchanges: Approximations and Design In Management Science (2015)
  Coauthor(s): Santiago Balseiro, Omar Besbes

• Intertemporal Price Discrimination: Structure and Computation of Optimal Policies In Management Science (2015)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Ilan Lobel

• Non-Stationary Stochastic Optimization In Operations Research (2015)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Yonatan Gur, Assaf Zeevi

• Dynamic Pricing Strategies in the Presence of Demand Shifts In Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2014)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Denis Saure

• On implications of demand censoring in the newsvendor problem In Management Science (2013)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Alp Muharremoglu

• Dynamic Pricing with Financial Milestones: Feedback-Form Policies In Management Science (2012)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Costis Maglaras

• Blind Network Revenue Management In Operations Research (2012)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Assaf Zeevi

• On the minimax complexity of pricing in a changing environment In Operations Research (2011)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Assaf Zeevi

• Testing the Validity of a Demand Model: An Operations Perspective In Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2010)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Assaf Zeevi

• Dynamic Pricing Without Knowing the Demand Function: Risk Bounds and Near-Optimal Algorithms In Operations Research (2009)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Assaf Zeevi

• Revenue Optimization for a Make-to-Order Queue in an Uncertain Market Environment In Operations Research (2009)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Costis Maglaras

• Going Bunkers: The Joint Route Selection and Refueling Problem In Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2009)
  Coauthor(s): Omar Besbes, Sergei Savin