不同渠道权力结构和信息结构下供应链定价和销售努力决策

本文针对零售商销售努力和销售价格影响需求情况下的制造商-零售商两级供应链,研究不同渠道权力结构和信息结构下供应链的分散决策。基于博弈理论和建模方法,对几种权力结构和信息结构情景建立相应模型,通过理论与数值分析对不同博弈均衡进行比较。研究表明,随着零售商势力逐步增强制造商利润会逐步恶化;但零售商势力增强能否带来更多利润,取决于需求对价格和销售努力的敏感度、销售努力成本以及信息结构。占优一方可以通过获取对方更多信息来改善自己处境。若占优零售商不得不依赖于对制造商成本先验分布进行决策,当估计的均值大于真实成本时,适度的方差对零售商更有利。最后,讨论了销售努力成本分担的合作机制,针对非合作博弈给出了帕累托改进的合约区间和 Nash讨价还价均衡。     

电子商务环境下双渠道供应链协调的补偿策略研究

构建了电子商务环境下由一个制造商与一个零售商组成的双渠道供应链模型,分析、比较了集中式决策与分散式决策下双渠道供应链的最优价格,从电子渠道与传统渠道合作的角度出发,研究了双渠道供应链协调的补偿策略,论证了这种补偿策略能够实现双渠道供应链协调,且在一定范围内可以保证双渠道供应链成员的双赢.最后通过算例分析,进一步检验了所设计的补偿策略对双渠道供应链协调的有效性.     

渠道冲突环境下的闭环供应链协调定价模型

在销售渠道和回收渠道均存在冲突的情形下建立了闭环供应链博弈模型.首先,在分散化定价决策下研究了闭环供应链中的节点企业为了取得各自最优利润,如何确定自己的批发价、零售价、废旧品的回收价和回收补贴价格,以及分析了销售渠道冲突和回收渠道冲突对节点企业定价决策和利润的影响.然后,以集中化定价决策下的均衡结果作为基准,提出了一个改进的两部定价契约来实现闭环供应链的协调,以弥补分散化决策的效率损失.最后,运用算例的方法,进一步分析和讨论了渠道冲突对闭环供应链定价决策、制造商和零售商收益比,以及闭环供应链渠道运作效率的影响.     

The Impact of Contracts and Competition on Upstream Innovation in a Supply Chain

We consider a supply chain with an upstream supplier who invests in innovation and a downstream manufacturer who sells to consumers. We study the impact of supply chain contracts with endogenous upstream innovation, focusing on three different contract scenarios: (i) a wholesale price contract, (ii) a quality‐dependent wholesale price contract, and (iii) a revenue‐sharing contract. We confirm that the revenue‐sharing contract can coordinate supply chain decisions including the innovation investment, whereas the other two contracts may result in underinvestment in innovation. However, the downstream manufacturer does not always prefer the revenue‐sharing contract; the manufacturer's profit can be higher with a quality‐dependent wholesale price contract than with a revenue‐sharing contract, specifically when the upstream supplier's innovation cost is low. We then extend our model to incorporate upstream competition between suppliers. By inviting upstream competition, with the wholesale price contract, the manufacturer can increase his profit substantially. Furthermore, under upstream competition, the revenue‐sharing contract coordinates the supply chain, and results in an optimal contract form for the manufacturer when suppliers are symmetric. We also analyze the case of complementary components suppliers, and show that most of our results are robust.     

Impacts of demand uncertainty on retailer's dominance and manufacturer-retailer supply chain cooperation

Recent studies in marketing and distribution channels have shown that the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers is shifting. Based on this observation, we investigate a two-echelon supply chain with a manufacturer and a retailer in this paper. We first develop retailer-dominant non-cooperative game models by introducing a sensitivity of retailer's order quantity to manufacturer's wholesale price; then we analyze two cooperative scenarios, in which the Nash bargaining model is utilized to implement profit sharing between the manufacturer and the retailer. Under the assumption that the manufacturer and the retailer are risk-neutral, we find that the manufacturer and the retailer can bargain to cooperate at any level of retail-market demand uncertainty with exogenous retail price. However, the cooperation is conditional on retail-market demand uncertainty with endogenous retail price: it can be implemented if the fluctuation of retail-market demand is relatively small, and the measure of retail-market demand uncertainty does not exceed an upper bound. Theoretical and numerical analyses show that the retailer's dominance over the manufacturer increases with the increase in the sensitivity of retailer's order quantity to manufacturer's wholesale price under a limitation of retail-market demand uncertainty. Numerical analyses also show that the retailer's dominance decreases with the increase in retail-market demand uncertainty.     

政府补贴下制造/再制造竞争机理研究

以政府“以旧换再”补贴政策为背景,建立了原始制造商、再制造商与零售商两阶段博弈模型.基于此博弈模型,考虑政府不采取补贴政策、政府补贴给再制造商及政府通过零售商补贴购买再制造产品消费者3种情况,对比分析了政府不同补贴策略对两种产品单位批发价格、零售价格、销售量、利润、消费者剩余及环境的影响.结果表明:当再制造产品的需求不受废旧产品回收量限制,政府补贴可以降低两种产品单位零售价格,增加再制造商和零售商的利润,提高消费者的剩余;当再制造产品的需求受到废旧产品回收量限制时,政府补贴可以增加两种产品的单位批发价格和两种产品制造商的利润,但是会降低零售商的销售利润.     

Contracting and Coordination under Asymmetric Production Cost Information

We analyze a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer. The supplier's unit production cost, which characterizes his type, is only privately known to him. When trading with the retailer, the supplier demands a reservation profit that depends on his unit production cost. We model this problem as a game of adverse selection. In this model, the retailer offers a menu of contracts, each of which consists of two parameters: the ordering quantity and the supplier's share of the channel profit. We show that the optimal contract depends critically on a surrogate measure—the ratio of the types’ reservation profit differential to their production cost differential. An important implication from our analysis is that information asymmetry alone does not necessarily induce loss in channel efficiency. The optimal contract can coordinate the supply chain as long as the low‐cost supplier's cost efficiency is neither much overvalued nor much undervalued in the outside market. We further discuss the retailer's preference of the supplier's type under different market conditions, as well as evaluate the effects of the supplier's reservation profit, the retail price, and the demand uncertainty on the optimal contract.     

Manufacturer's pricing strategy for supply chain with warranty period-dependent demand

This article presents a review of the issues associated with a manufacturer's pricing strategies in a two-echelon supply chain that comprises one manufacturer and two competing retailers, with warranty period-dependent demands. The manufacturer, as a Stackelberg leader, specifies wholesale prices to two competing retailers who face warranty period-dependent demand and have different sales costs. The manufacturer considers three pricing options: (1) setting the same price for both retailers, while disregarding their difference with regard to sales cost; (2) setting a different price to each retailer on the basis of their sales cost; and (3) setting the same price to both retailers according to the average sales cost of the industry. In this article, the retailers' optimal warranty periods and their optimal profit, manufacturer's optimal wholesale price, and his/her optimal profit associated with different pricing strategies have been derived using the game theory. Our analysis shows that the results for retailers are the same with Strategy 1 or Strategy 3. In addition, we compared the effects of different pricing strategies of the manufacturer on supply chain decisions and profit. We conclude from the results that the manufacturer should either adopt Strategy 2 with symmetrical sales cost information or Strategy 3 if retailers' sales costs are asymmetrical.     

The Effect of Delayed Incentives on Supply Chain Profits and Consumer Surplus

We examine the use of consumer cash mail‐in rebates offered by a manufacturer in a Stackelberg game where the manufacturer is the leader and the retailer is the follower. Our analysis indicates that rebates are profitable for manufacturers if consumers are inconsistent in the sense that their rebate valuation when they make purchase decisions is independent of their redemption probabilities when they make redemption decisions. If the manufacturer keeps the wholesale price unchanged, then the rebate increases the retailer's profit by a larger amount than the increase in the manufacturer's profit. If the manufacturer jointly optimizes the wholesale price and rebate, then the increase in the manufacturer's profit is twice the increase in the retailer's profit. The retailer responds to rebates by increasing the retail price, which increases the margin paid by consumers who do not redeem the rebate. On average, consumer surplus decreases when it is optimal for manufacturers to offer rebates. We suggest incentive schemes that make it worthwhile for retailers to limit the price increase. In these incentive schemes, the manufacturer imposes a negative relationship between the rebate value and the retail price. We show that such incentives increase supply chain profits.     

Optimal Design of a Pharmaceutical Price–Volume Agreement Under Asymmetric Information About Expected Market Size

Price–volume agreements are commonly negotiated between drug manufacturers and third‐party payers for drugs. In one form a drug manufacturer pays a rebate to the payer on a portion of sales in excess of a specified threshold. We examine the optimal design of such an agreement under complete and asymmetric information about demand. We consider two types of uncertainty: information asymmetry, defined as the payer's uncertainty about mean demand; and market uncertainty, defined as both parties' uncertainty about true demand. We investigate the optimal contract design in the presence of asymmetric information. We find that an incentive compatible contract always exists; that the optimal price is decreasing in expected market size, while the rebate may be increasing or decreasing in expected market size; that the optimal contract for a manufacturer with the highest possible demand would include no rebate; and, in a special case, if the average reservation profit is non‐decreasing in expected market size, then the optimal contract includes no rebates for all manufacturers. Our analysis suggests that price–volume agreements with a rebate rate of 100% are not likely to be optimal if payers have the ability to negotiate prices as part of the agreement.     

消费者“搭便车”行为影响下的双渠道供应链定价和促销策略研究

在制造商主导的二层双渠道供应链背景下,考察由于实体店促销努力而新进入市场消费者的“搭便车”行为,刻画供应链定价和促销策略发生的变化,并设计一个制造商分担实体店促销努力成本的协调机制来改善供应链运作效率。研究发现：（1）促销成本分担机制的介入将同时提高实体店零售价格和网店直销价格,但无论是否存在促销成本分担机制,网店直销价格均显著低于实体店零售价格;（2）新进入市场消费者的“搭便车”行为将会显著降低实体店促销努力水平和供应链整体利润水平;（3）促销成本分担机制可以实现制造商和实体店双方利润水平的Pareto改进。最后用数值仿真验证了促销成本分担机制作为供应链协调机制的可行性。     

直销渠道开通的情形下制造商与电商平台合约选择的研究

理论界认为代售合约具有明显的消除双重边际效应的作用,许多制造商和电商平台选择签订代售合约,但是也有制造商和电商平台选择了批发合约。本文以在线销售系统为背景,研究了直销渠道开通的情形下制造商和电商平台合约的选择。通过研究发现,制造商和电商平台并不是总偏好批发合约或代售合约,并且存在一个帕累托改进区域;虽然制造商在电商平台上有网络销售渠道,但是制造商会保留原有的直销渠道;对于电商平台来说,收益分配系数并不是越大越好;代售合约虽然能够消除双重边际效应,但在代售合约下,整个在线销售系统的效率并不总是最高的。另外,随着直销渠道的效率增加,制造商会先降低批发价格,然后再增加批发价格;与以往的研究结论不同,代售合约下电商平台的市场销售价格并不总是最小的。以上的结论其实都是批发合约下的直销渠道和代售合约下的电商平台在缓解双重边际效应方面的不同作用带来的。     

考虑双重努力因素的制造商和零售商投资机制设计

以往研究主要集中在制造商的质量提高和零售商的销售努力投资。而本文在需求依赖于质量努力和销售努力的前提下,制造商和零售商遵循Stackelberg博弈情形,研究不同供应链成员承担质量努力和销售努力成本对产品定价和利润的影响。商业实践表明,制造商和零售商都有动机对质量努力和销售努力进行投资,由此制定三种投资决策模式：制造商和零售商分别投资、仅制造商投资和仅零售商投资质量努力和销售努力。研究结果表明,零售价格、订购量、质量努力和销售努力水平均随着质量和销售努力成本的增大而递减;制造商更愿意让零售商投资质量努力和销售努力,而零售商可能不愿意让制造商进行投资;在零售商独立投资的情形下,供应链成员的利润以及质量努力和销售努力水平大于其他情形。     

考虑消费者退货的制造商入侵策略研究

在考虑消费者退货的情形下，通过构建包括一个制造商、一个零售商和消费者的二级供应链模型，研究了订货量决策以及制造商开通直销渠道的问题。分析提供退款保证和决策顺序对均衡结果以及制造商开通直销渠道的影响。研究发现：在单一渠道供应链中，提供退款保证提高销量，制造商和零售商利润以及消费者剩余；在不提供退款保证情形下，制造商利润和零售商利润都随零售满意度递增；在提供退款保证情形下，制造商利润和零售商利润都随零售满意度先递减后递增；当直销渠道的成本较高时，制造商将不开通直销渠道；提供退款保证有利于制造商开通直销渠道。在双渠道供应链中：在顺序决策情形下，直销量随零售满意度递增，然而在同时决策情形下，直销量却随零售满意度递减；提供退款保证虽然降低零售商利润但能够提高消费者剩余，零售商利润随直销成本递增，在提供退款保证情形下，制造商利润和总利润随直销成本先递减后递增；当零售满意度较高，且直销成本也较高时，提供退款保证使制造商和零售商“双输”，当零售满意度较高，但直销成本较低时，提供退款保证使制造商和零售商达到(win-lose)。     

道德风险下带有Knight不确定的最优动态契约设计

本文从概率统计模型本身的不确定性是本质的、不能消除掉的角度出发, 研究了Knight不确定下连续时间委托-代理问题, 其中主要考虑了代理人的道德风险对契约执行过程以及契约存续情况的影响.首先, 建立了代理人延续价值以及委托人预期利润的动态方程.其次, 运用次线性期望下的随机最优性原理, 以更加准确、深刻的方法去刻画实际委托人和代理人经济行为, 进而得到委托人效用值函数的Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) 方程, 并求得委托人对代理人最优支付以及代理人最优努力水平的表达式.最后, 通过理论解的数值模拟, 分析了Knight不确定对委托人和代理人最优策略以及最优契约的影响.     

Supplier Encroachment and Investment Spillovers

It is conventional wisdom that a manufacturer's encroachment into retail space will likely hurt an existing retailer. In contrast to this conventional belief, current research indicates that a retailer may welcome a manufacturer's encroachment despite the new competition in the final market. The encroachment may help the manufacturer have some “skin in the game” at the retail level, which will cause the manufacturer to make a selfish cost‐reducing investment that spills over to the retailer as a lower wholesale price. Such a spillover effect enhances the retailer's profit as long as the encroachment does not result in extreme retail competition by a certain degree of product differentiation, and ultimately generates Pareto gains in the supply chain. The spillover effect is so robust that the retailer's benefit from the encroachment remains even after considering potential mitigating factors such as selling costs, a nonlinear form of cost reduction, decentralized encroachment, additional retail competition, price competition, and a negotiation between the manufacturer and the retailer.     

Strategic transfer pricing in a marketing–operations interface with quality level and advertising dependent goodwill

Determining an appropriate transfer price is of importance to a firm composed of divisional profit centers since it significantly affects decision-makings of each profit center and then the firm׳s profit. In this paper, we investigate the effects of negotiated and administered transfer pricing on the profits of each center and the firm based on a differential game involving an operations department and a marketing department within a firm. The operations department is responsible for the quality improvement of a particular product and sells this product to end customers through the marketing department who controls the retail price and advertising effort. Our results suggest that compared with the administered transfer price, the negotiation between the operations department and the marketing department leads to a higher transfer price, and then a higher retail price, lower advertising effort and higher quality improvement effort. What׳s more, the decentralized departments can be coordinated by a committed dynamic transfer price of the operations department, and both departments and the firm can benefit from this coordination.     

Channel Strategies for Durable Goods: Coexistence of Selling and Leasing to Individual and Corporate Consumers

In durable goods markets, such as those for automobiles or computers, the coexistence of selling and leasing is common as is the existence of both corporate and individual consumers. Leases to corporate consumers affect the price of used goods on the second‐hand market which in turn affect the buying and leasing behavior of individual consumers. The setting of prices (or volumes) for sale and lease to individual and corporate consumers is a complicated problem for manufacturers. We consider a manufacturer who concurrently sells and leases a finitely durable good to both individual and corporate consumers. The interaction between the manufacturer and consumers is modeled as a dynamic sequential game, where each player seeks to maximize its own payoff over an infinite horizon. We study how the corporate channel substitutability of new goods and used goods and transaction costs in the second‐hand market affect the manufacturer's pricing decisions, consumer behavior, and social welfare in the retail market. Making a number of simplifying assumptions, including two‐period lifetime for the finitely durable goods, we consider Markov Perfect Equilibrium as the solution concept. We show that the manufacturer can maximize her profit by segmenting consumers according to their willingness to pay. Selling and leasing are the mechanisms used for price discrimination in the retail market. We show that as she leases a larger share of her production to the corporate consumer, (1) the manufacturer does not necessarily have to adjust the optimal selling price of new goods to individual consumers, and the volume of sales of new goods to individual consumers can stay the same; (2) the manufacturer does increase the retail lease price, and the number of individual leases decreases; (3) the net supply of used goods on the market increases, leading to a lower market price for used goods; and (4) more individual consumers are able to participate in the market, and their collective welfare or net utility improves. We also show that as production costs increase the manufacturer increases prices, reducing volumes across all channels. When transaction costs increase, the manufacturer reduces leasing in both corporate and retail channels.     

Coordinating a Supply Chain When Facing Strategic Consumers

This article examines the impact of strategic consumers on the efficiency and coordination of a supply chain. We consider a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a newsvendor retailer selling a seasonal product to strategic consumers, who may choose to wait for clearance sales to maximize their intertemporal utility. Under a prenegotiated supply contract, the retailer chooses retail price and ordering quantity simultaneously. After that, the strategic consumers, who may be heterogeneous in their patience levels, make purchasing decisions. We find that strategic consumer behavior can hurt the supply chain efficiency due to severe double marginalization, and that a simple buyback contract can coordinate the supply chain. Nevertheless, we show that the supply chain does become more difficult to coordinate when strategic consumers are present: the set of buyback contractual terms that coordinate the chain shrinks as consumers are more willing to wait, and the chain profit cannot be arbitrarily allocated between the firms. Contrary to popular intuition, this result implies that the retailer may enjoy some benefit from consumers' strategic waiting. In addition, we find that the retailer's gain is the highest when impatient and patient consumers are comparably mixed in the population.      

基于谈判机制的优质货架与通道费

大型零售企业能够收取通道费的重要基础在于它所提供的货架资源尤其是优质货架能够在较大程度上提升制造商的市场销量,改善制造商的经营状况,增加制造商的利润。本文以货架对消费者效用的影响机制为研究基础,构建了相应的需求函数,并通过三阶段动态博弈模型分析了货架对零售价格、市场销量、厂商利润的影响,然后从制造商、零售商的参与约束以及渠道成员的利益协调等角度出发,讨论了通道费的可能性、存在性与合理性,最后从消费者福利的角度对零售商收取通道费的行为提出了相应的政策建议。