Social service purchasing in China: Rationale,features, and risks

As part of a broader program of market reform, China's local governments are progressing an agenda of purchasing child welfare and other social services from the nongovernment sector, primarily to expand capacity and address vast unmet need. This paper draws on current research evidence to explore the approaches to purchasing emerging in China, examining the rationale for purchasing and models of supply, competition, and regulation. While some approaches are modeled on direct service contracting, direct purchasing of social service “posts” is also used, aimed at achieving goals of professionalization alongside service expansion. Overall, the review shows purchasing is helping to rapidly expand service scale and capacity; however, regulatory strategies for managing and mitigating risks to quality and access appear lacking. This highlights the need for further scholarship aimed at developing the robust risk management strategies which are required to support high quality, sustainable provision of purchased services.     

A Portfolio Approach to Procurement Contracts

The purpose of this paper is to develop a general framework for supply contracts in which portfolios of contracts can be analyzed and optimized. We focus on a multi‐period environment with convex contract, spot market, and inventory holding costs. We specialize the model to the case of a portfolio consisting of option contracts. We characterize the optimal replenishment policy and show that it has a simple structure. Namely, the use of every different option contract and the spot market is dictated by a modified base‐stock policy. In addition, we derive conditions to determine when an option is relatively attractive compared to other options or the spot market. Finally, we present our computational study, where we report the sensitivity of the results to the parameters of the model. Our experiments indicate that portfolio contracts not only increase the manufacturer's expected profit, but can also reduce its financial risk.     

The Organization of Supplier Networks: Effects of Delegation and Intermediation

In a one‐principal two‐agent model with adverse selection and collusion among agents, we show that delegating to one agent the right to subcontract with the other agent always earns lower profit for the principal compared with centralized contracting. Delegation to an intermediary is also not in the principal's interest if the agents supply substitutes. It can be beneficial if the agents produce complements and the intermediary is well informed.     

Racial Segregation,the Concentration of Disadvantage,and Black and White Homicide Victimization

Discriminatory housing market practices have created and reinforced patterns of racial residential segregation throughout the United States. Such segregation has racist consequences too. Residential segregation increases the concentration of disadvantage for blacks but not whites, creating African-American residential environments that heighten social problems including violence within the black population. At the same time, segregation protects white residential environments from these dire consequences. This hypothesized racially inequitable process is tested for one important type of violence—homicide. We examine race-specific models of lethal violence that distinguish residential segregation from the concentration of disadvantage within racial groups. Data are from the Censuses of Population and Federal Bureau of Investigation's homicide incidence files for U.S. large central cities for 1980 and 1990. Our perspective finds support in the empirical analyses. Segregation has an important effect on black but not white killings, with the impact of segregation on African-American homicides explained by concentrated disadvantage.     

电子商务环境下合作采购效益分析

合作采购是一种重要的企业间电子商务应用模式,成功实施合作采购需要供应链成员的积极参与。本文针对供应商采取的两种批发价定价策略,比较分析了协调成本对买主间合作采购动力及其总体采购成本的影响。其结果表明,只要协调成本较小,买主便具有合作采购动力,且无论供应商采取固定价格策略还是采取数量折扣策略,都存在一个协调成本临界值,当协调成本小于该临界值时,合作采购将同时减少买主与供应商的总体成本;当协调成本大于该临界值时,则总有一方的总体成本在合作采购中增加。     

高校教学物资设备招标采购成本控制研究与策略

由于以前的采购管理混乱、采购程序繁杂、资金使用不透明和货款支付延迟等等原因,使采购成本居高不下。因而,对高校的教学、科研等物资设备的采购过程和采购成本进行了研究,提出了一套科学的管理方法,即通过对高校物资设备采购的直接控制和外在控制,发挥规模效应、扩大招标信息的受众面、筹措采购资金,合理选择支付方式、采用合理的评标办法、强化校内共享性资源的协调利用、选择合适的供应商等策略,把采购成本控制在合理的范围内。     

Ordering behavior in a supply chain with customers that respond to changes in service level

The presence of service-level-dependent demand has been empirically observed in industry and is well-documented in the literature. How does the implicit contractual existence of such service dependency impact the ordering decisions of upstream suppliers? We conduct three controlled laboratory experiments to study the impact a service-reward mechanism may have on the upstream ordering decisions of those charged with inventory ordering decisions. The multistudy approach provides representations of decision dynamics across a variety of scenarios, from one-shot buys to long-term supply-chain relationships. Our combined empirical results consistently suggest that the service-reward mechanism significantly and systematically elevates order levels and order variability in a manner that increases departure from optimal ordering. This effect is observed even when decision-makers have incentives to maintain a steady ordering pattern with their suppliers. Our findings shed much-needed light on individual ordering responses to, and the associated risks of, service-reward mechanisms.     

Risk management in public procurement for innovation: the case of Nordic–Baltic Sea cities

State support for innovation in enterprises has been long-standing. One of the specific support measures is public procurement for innovation, which has only recently re-emerged in academic discussion as well as in the European policy discourse. While the spillovers from this type of innovation policy measure may be substantial, the complex processes underlying the support for innovation through public procurement are associated with high risks. We take an exploratory approach to determine the state of practice of risk management in public procurement for innovation at the local level. Five case studies, which were selected as representative cases of the Nordic–Baltic Sea region in Europe, were analyzed. We found that the cities were, for the most part, actively involved in risk identification; the risks are primarily being met with mixed contracting strategies rather than comprehensive risk management tools.     

日韩政府采购促进自主创新特色研究

在当前财政部暂停政府采购促进自主创新相关政策的大背景下,对日韩两国政府采购促进自主创新的主要特色进行了研究:日本以扶持中小企业、韩国以推行电子化政府采购为主,都对本国的自主创新有显著促进。日韩的政策给我们以借鉴和启示:将政府采购促进自主创新的意图体现到扶持中小企业、优先购买国货等其他相关的法律、政策当中;强化全民在政府采购中保护自主创新的意识;找准突破口,以点带面,通过政府采购,全面促进国家自主创新。     

论高校政府采购与招投标管理长效机制的建立与完善

以往,高校招标采购存在多头管理、随意性大和规模效益难以优化等问题,高校政府采购与招投标制度建设的创新与完善,可以从建立招投标管理常设机构、准备工作规范、采购预算的编制与执行、招标采购审计制度、项目验收机制的不断健全、建立采购项目绩效评价机制等方面入手。