Research Reports from the Department of Operations

Authors

Chien-Hua Lin

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

6-11-1975

Abstract

This thesis discusses a special integer program, a complete set partitioning problem in context of a real world situation; namely, that of paying unemployment compensation tax. In the United States, employers are required to pay contribution to a state administered unemployment compensation fund to protect the employees in the event of unemployment. A corporation can often be considered as a composition of subsidiaries, each with their own accounting data. In many states including Ohio, these subsidiaries may be treated individually or in various aggregations, each aggregation becoming a subsidiary, prior to computing the contribution payment. The payment is a function of a known tax schedule and the expected payroll. The tax rate and expected payroll is a function of how the subsidiaries are aggregated. The question is to find the aggregation which minimizes the parent corporation's total tax payment. This problem can be formulated as the complete set partitioning problem. The special structure of this integer program was explored. This suggested binary expansion equivalences for the zero-one columns and allowed to transform the complete set partitioning problem to an equivalent decomposable zero-one integer program with a coupling row. Some theorems and observations which are used to transform the problem are presented. In addition, a special enumerative algorithm which utilizes a column and cost generation scheme is developed to solve the equivalent problem efficiently. Heuristics for solving large scale problems are also given. Computational results reflecting 1974 data for several Ohio firms, are also listed.

Keywords

Operations research, Integer programming, Unemployment insurance--Taxation, Heuristic algorithms, Corporations--Ohio, Compensation (Law)--Ohio, Compensation management--Ohio, Unemployment insurance--Law and legislation--United States, Corporations--Taxation--Law and legislation--United States, Algorithms, Mathematical optimization

Publication Title

Dissertation/Technical Memorandums from the Department of Operations, School of Management, Case Western Reserve University

Issue

Technical memorandum no. 362 ; Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Rights

This work is in the public domain and may be freely downloaded for personal or academic use

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