题   目：The Sooner, the Better? Optimal Vaccination Policy with Limited Vaccine Supply

嘉　宾：陈奇 助理教授 伦敦商学院

主持人：曾智宇 助理教授 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时　间：2026年8月31日（周一）14:00-15:30

地　点：上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院包兆龙图书馆A507

内容简介：

We study the optimal single-dose vaccination policy during an infectious disease outbreak, considering both limited vaccine supply and imperfect efficacy, which provides partial immunity to each vaccinated individual. The inclusion of imperfect efficacy introduces an additional compartment to the celebrated Susceptible- Infectious-Recovered (SIR) model, giving rise to an infinite horizon nonlinear optimal control problem. We derive a closed-form expression for the optimal vaccination policy under infinite administrative capacity and establish theoretical structures of the optimal policy under finite capacity. Our results suggest that delaying the start of the vaccination process may be optimal, especially when the vaccine is less effective, the vaccine supply is more limited, and the disease is more infectious. We identify key terms as an integral part of the analysis that characterize the individual-level benefit of vaccination and, importantly, provide insights into the intuition behind vaccination delay. Building on these theoretical findings, our numerical study confirms these insights through sensitivity results. We demonstrate the significant benefit of delay in reducing the total number of infections compared to policies without delay. Furthermore, we extend our analysis to alternative model dynamics and objective functions, confirming that our key findings remain robust and that our methodology is applicable across different settings. Additionally, we develop a general framework and provide guidance for applying the methodology to broader epidemic settings. Our study contributes to the methodological framework to analyze optimal vaccination policies for infectious disease control, and uncovers an important policy structure – vaccination delay – that has been overlooked in the literature but has important implications for practice.

演讲人简介：

Qi (George) Chen is an Assistant Professor of Management Science and Operations at London Business School. He earned his doctoral degree from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and his bachelor degree from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University. Prior to joining LBS, he has taught at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Chen's research focuses on developing quantitative models and solution methods for operational decisions involving uncertainty and risks, with applications in public health delivery, platform and revenue management, and supply chain management.

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