Essays on retail operations management

This dissertation presents research on two topics in retail operations management: the inventory-based lending cycle and the impact of supplier inventory service level on retailer demand. The first study examines the cycle of lending, appraisal, and liquidation that supports collateralized lending on retail inventories. The second study introduces the retail store liquidation problem to the literature, presents a model for improving pricing, inventory, and store closing decisions during liquidation, and discusses insights and results generated by applying the model to recent large-scale retail liquidations. The third study provides the first empirical evidence of the effect of supplier inventory service level on retailer demand, demonstrating a positive and substantial relationship between a supplier's historical inventory service level to a retailer and the retailer's current demand for the supplier's products.