3/13/25 | 4:15pm | E51-376
Dan Andrei Iancu
Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business
Faculty Affiliate in the Woods Institute
Stanford University
Abstract: We discuss a set of problems arising in the management of global food systems where technology and data analytics combined with operational innovations and incentives can lead to substantial improvements. The first part of the talk focuses on the issue of tropical deforestation associated with the supply of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, cocoa, or coffee, which causes alarming CO2 emissions and loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. To prevent this, governments and multinational commodity buyers are offering positive incentives for local communities conditional on preventing deforestation in a specified area. We propose and analyze alternative weaker conditions related to preventing the use of timber or cleared land for economic purposes. To compare various incentive schemes, we propose a new robust solution concept for cooperative games with externalities and use it to characterize the best condition and the feasible incentives that prevent deforestation and compensate local community members for missed economic opportunities. We then leverage this framework to determine whether conditional price premiums for palm fruit would successfully prevent deforestation in the Indonesian palm oil supply chain. Using survey data from 58 villages in East Kalimantan and robust data envelopment analysis, we find that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) price premium is too low, but moderate price premiums combined with our novel conditions would prevent deforestation in most villages and would be remarkably robust to entry by outsiders. The second part of the talk considers problems related to food retail, and more specifically the management of perishable foods prepared in stores. We show how retailers that optimize their operational policies — optimally choosing the shelf life of products, the issuance rule, the price, and whether to add timestamps that inform customers about the age of products — can successfully boost profit as well as increase customer welfare and reduce food waste.
Bio: Dan Iancu is an Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His research and teaching interests are in responsible analytics and AI and data-driven optimization, with applications in global supply chain management, FinTech, and healthcare. Broadly speaking, his work has two main threads: (i) improving existing methodological tools for data-driven decision-making (e.g., making them more scalable, fair, robust, or transparent) and (ii) applying these to address complex operational problems where choices of material, financial or information flows carry substantial impact on the lives of millions of people and on the natural environment. His research has received several best paper awards and has been published in the top journals in operations research and operations management, and he serves on the editorial board of several of these journals. His teaching has received commendations at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and INSEAD.