Faculty - Matthew Sobel

William E. Umstattd Professor of Industrial Economics
Chair, Department of Economics
Professor, Operations
Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Ph.D., Stanford University, 1967
A.M., Columbia University, 1964
B.S., Columbia University, 1960
A.B., Columbia College, 1959

Would it be prudent to invest in the remediation of global climate change if the major impacts would be a century hence and longer? Will the capital cost of more efficient manufacturing pay off quickly enough to offset the risks in effectiveness and operating cost? Risk and time are the issues. Matt Sobel’s research highlights the interdependence of preferences regarding riskiness and timeliness. Matt also studies (a) how best to coordinate business operations and finance for greater competitive effectiveness, and (b) how to exorcize the “curse of dimensionality” from large-scale optimization models of decisions made over time in risky circumstances. His research has appeared in major journals in economics, operations research, biology, and statistics.

Interests

Teaching

Game Theory
Sustainable Operations
Operations Research

Research

Preference theory
Environmental and energy management
Stochastic optimization
Coordination of operations with finance

Selected Publications

• Sobel, M. J. (2012). Discounting Axioms Imply Risk Neutrality . Annals of Operations Research.
• Hu, Q. J., Li, L., Sobel, M. J. (2011). Production/Inventory Management and Capital Structure. Handbook of Integrated Risk Management in Global Supply Chains.
• Sobel, M. J. (2010). The Trojan Horse of Time-Risk Preference Representations . Risk and Optimization in an Uncertain World.
• Sobel, M. J., Wei, W. (2010). Homogeneous Markov Decision Processes. Operations Research.
• Sobel, M. J. (2008). Risk Pooling. When Intuition Fails.
• Babich, V. and Sobel, M. J. (2004). Pre-IPO Operational and Financial Decisions. Management Science.
• Botkin, D. et al. (2007). Forecasting Effects of Global Warming on Biodiversity. Bioscience.
• Heyman, D. P., Sobel, M. J. (2004). Stochastic Models in Operations Research, Volume I: Stochastic Processes and Operating Characteristics.
• Heyman, D. P., Sobel, M. J. (2004). Stochastic Models in Operations Research, Volume II: Stochastic Optimization.
• Gjerde, K. P., Slotnick, S. A., Sobel, M. J. (2002). New Product Innovation with Multiple Features and Technology Constraints). Management Science.
• Monahan, G. E. and Sobel, M. J. (1997). Risk-Sensitive Dynamic Market Share Attraction Games. Games and Economic Behavior.
• Monahan, G. E. and Sobel, M. J. (1993). Dynamic Market Share Attraction Games. Games and Economic Behavior.
• Shubik, M. and Sobel, M. J. (1992). On Matching Book: A Problem in Banking and Corporate Finance. Management Science.
• Sobel, M. J. (1990). Higher Order and Average Reward Myopic-Affine Dynamic Model. Mathematics of Operations Research.
• Sobel, M. J. (1990). Myopic Solutions of Affine Dynamic Models. Operations Research.
• Sobel, M. J. (1989). A Multi-Reservoir Model with a Myopic Optimum. Dynamic Programming for Optimal Water Resources Systems Analysis.
• Sobel, M. J. (1987). Queueing Theory. The New Palgrave.
• Sobel, M. J. (1982). Stochastic Fishery Games with Myopic Equilibria. The Economics of Renewable Resource Management.
• Mendelssohn, R. and Sobel, M. J. (1980). Capital Accumulation and the Optimization of Renewable Resource Models. Journal of Economic Theory.
• Shubik, M. and Sobel, M. J. (1980). Stochastic Games, Oligopoly Theory, and Competitive Resource Allocation. Dynamic Optimization and Mathematical Economics.
• Sobel, M. J. (1980). Ordinal Sequential Games. Économies et Sociétés.
• Botkin, D. B. and Sobel, M. J. (1976). Stability in Ecosystems: Semantics, Models, and Reality. The Biological Significance of Environmental Impacts.
• Sanghvi, A. P. and Sobel, M. J. (1976). Bayesian Games as Stochastic Processes. International Journal of Game Theory.
• Sobel, M. J. (1975). Ordinal Dynamic Programming. Management Science.
• Botkin, D. B. and M. J. Sobel (1975). Stability in Time Varying Ecosystems. American Naturalist.
• Kirman, A. P. and Sobel, M. J. (1974). Dynamic Oligopoly with Inventories. Econometrica.
• Sobel, M. J. (1971). Noncooperative Stochastic Games. Annals of Mathematical Statistics.

Selected Presentations

• Sobel, M. J. Discussion conference on “Reconciling Ecology and Economics,” PERC-Liberty Fund, Hoover Institution (2012).
• Sobel, M. J. Friday Public Affairs luncheon discussion, Case Western Reserve University, "Environmental Impacts of Fracking” (2012).
• Sobel, M. J. First Unitarian Church of Cleveland, “Economic Impacts of Fracking” (2012).
• Sobel, M. J. Columbia University, "Discounting Axioms Imply Risk Neutrality" (2011).
• Sobel, M. J. Anderson Graduate School of Management, UC Riverside, "Production / Inventory Management and Capital Structure." (2010).
• Sobel, M. J. INFORMS Annual Meeting, "Tutorial: The Trojan Horse of Time-Risk Preference Representations." (2010).
• Sobel, M. J. EURO Working Group on Stochastic Modeling, "Optimization Criteria, Discounting, and Risk Neutrality."  (2008).

Academic and Professional Activities

• American Economic Association.
• Econometric Society.
• Decision Analysis Society.
• Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society.
• Sigma Xi.
• Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.
• Academic Advisory Board founding member (Environmental Sciences), Central European University.

Awards

• Fellow, Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).
• University Lead Award, Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
• Sigma Xi.
• Alpha Pi Mu.