供应不确定下基于Supply-hub的供应商选择和库存协同决策

针对由供应商、Supply-hub和制造商组成的三级供应链的多产品供应商选择和库存协同问题,考虑供应商存在延迟交付风险、供应数量约束,以供应链运作成本最小为目标,构建整数规划模型。分析结果表明:在一定的条件下,总存在最优的供应商选择方案和库存策略;当供应商的延迟交付概率增加,供应链期望成本上涨;当供应商供应数量无限制时,减少最优订货批量可以弱化供应不确定性增加造成的影响;当供应商选择方案不变,订货提前期增加,供应链的运作成本以及最优订货批量不变;一种零部件提前期的变化不影响其他零部件的供应商选择和库存策略。     

Dividends and leverage: How to optimally exploit a non-renewable investment

In this paper we model the situation where a non-renewable investment is given, for instance a resource reservoir, and show how to optimally trade-off between dividends and leverage, in order to maximize a performance indicator for shareholders, up to the bankruptcy time. We then study the way market risk (the volatility of the market price of the resource) impacts the optimal policies and the default risk of the company. The moments when the policies are rebalanced are analyzed and we give a measure of the agency costs which appear between the shareholders and the debt-holders.     

Supplier development and cost management in Southeast Asia—Results from a field study

This paper is about supplier development when international companies have production sites in Southeast Asia and look for opportunities to switch from international suppliers to local suppliers. We conducted a field study involving site visits to companies in Thailand and Vietnam, and interviews at corporate supply chain departments. Some key observations are: cost management was a dominant motive for taking local supplier development initiatives. Furthermore, local sourcing and local supplier development were important for international companies to improve access to local customer markets. Firms deliberately assessed whether a particular supplier would likely be able to improve sufficiently to warrant investing in supplier development, which typically involved a combination of initiatives, requiring the international firm to take considerable efforts. Local sourcing strategies and priorities for supplier development initiatives tended to focus on items with low supply risk and low volume. These findings are discussed based on transaction cost economics, and we suggest that firms use several ways to reduce the risk of transaction-specific investments in supplier development initiatives.     

Voter turnout in a multidimensional policy space

Many factors influence the likelihood of citizens turning out to vote. In this paper we focus our attention on issue voting, that is, on the likelihood that different policies offered by politicians affect the probability of voting. If voters consider both the benefits and the costs of voting, rational voters will only vote when politicians offer differentiated policies. In a multidimensional policy space this implies that citizens only vote when they perceive enough difference on the issues they care about the most. We investigate the role of voter abstention due to indifference in a unidimensional and a multidimensional policy setting using data from the US National Election Studies for 1972–2000 and find support for our predictions: voters perceiving a small difference between the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties are less likely to vote; and voters who perceive the two parties as more different on a larger number of issues are significantly more likely to vote.     

基于Stackelberg博弈的供应链信用风险分析

讨论了由一个供应商和一个销售商组成的简单供应链,在销售商还款不确定的前提下,基于供应商和销售商订货过程是Stackelberg博弈,给出了他们的最优定价和订货策略,并说明了通过合理定价,供应商可以有效地防范信用风险;然后分析了销售商违约对供销双方及供应链的影响,并通过算例进行了说明。     

THE ECONOMICS OF THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

Abstract. The recognition that economic activity is contributing to climatic change, with attendant costs that may be of large magnitudes, has set in motion a substantial research effort. This paper seeks to review the contribution of economics to analysis of the greenhouse effect and to the policies and instruments suggested as means of mitgiating its damage.
A brief overview of the causes and consequences of global warming is given, and a number of energy-economy forecasting models are examined. As the costs of global warming depend upon the extent to which preventative and adaptive measures are undertaken, the techniques available to evaluate these costs are surveyed.
We examine extant targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and explore the frameworks within which optimal policy targets can be designed. The paper also considers the narrower question of (minimized) abatement costs, and surveys the types of models used to estimate them.
The merits of alternative policy instruments are examined, paying particular attention to the role that risk and uncertainty, and the costs of monitoring and implementation of policy under conditions of imperfect information, may play in the choice of instruments. Problems of international co-operation in the development of abatement policy are examined, and we consider the compensations (across both nations and generations) that are likely to be necessary conditions for effective action.     

基于零售商风险厌恶的供应链管理

考虑由一个供应商和一个零售商组成的二级供应链,在零售商风险中性和风险厌恶的条件下,分别研究了三种不同契约下零售商的最优订单问题,得到零售商风险厌恶时的最优订单量要小于零售商风险中性时的最优订单量,最后给出研究结论及管理学意义。     

Impacts of revenue sharing,profit sharing and transfer pricing on quality-improving investments

We compare revenue sharing with different profit-sharing rules and constant transfer prices in a buyer-seller setting, in which the incompleteness of contracts causes decentralization costs. Our focus is on a situation where a manufacturing department or a supplier of an intermediate product can invest in a quality improvement of the final product and thereby increase customer demand. We analyze the willingness of the supplier to invest under a revenue-sharing rule, three profit-sharing rules and a transfer-pricing scheme. Our analysis shows that the performance of sharing rules is likely to decrease when the sharing basis consists of fewer cost components. Remarkably, this is not true for the revenue-sharing rule. To the contrary, this less prominent scheme can be shown to maximize total profit under a variety of cost combinations.     

Environmental policy implications of extreme variations in pollutant stock levels and socioeconomic costs

This paper uses a real options approach to examine the impact of abrupt increases in carbon dioxide emissions and pollutant-related socio-economic costs. It derives optimal investment rules in the form of critical values for both pollutant stock levels and social costs, above which environmental policies should be adopted. Moreover, it determines the optimal emissions abatement level. Our analysis extends the methodology of Pindyck (2000) using jump diffusion processes. We show that if the stock of pollutant is subject to extreme variations and the emissions abatement level is chosen exogenously by the policymaker, then lower levels of the pollutant stock are required to trigger policy adoption. A similar, yet more prominent, effect is observed under the assumption that pollutant-related socio-economic costs and benefits are expected to exhibit abrupt changes. However, different results are obtained when we examine simultaneously the two interrelated decisions, namely, the optimal threshold of emissions abatement and the optimal abatement level. In this case, an increase in the size and/or probability of a jump increases the critical values of both pollutant stock levels and socio-economic costs but leads to higher optimal abatement.     

Non-transferable non-hedgeable executive stock option pricing

To value non-transferable non-hedgeable (NTNH) contingent claims and price executive stock options (ESOs), we use a replication argument to translate portfolios with NTNH derivatives into portfolios of primary assets (only) with stochastic portfolio constraints. By identifying stochastic discount factors and finding subjective prices of NTNH European and American ESOs, for block and continuous partial exercise, we derive executives׳ optimal exercise policies, and use these to find objective prices/costs of ESOs to firms. Through numerical simulations, we obtain policy implications regarding ESOs׳ incentivizing efficiency. For the first time, we demonstrate that, unlike under block exercise, subjective prices under continuous partial exercise may be higher than objective ones. Moreover, volatility regimes and executives׳ “other wealth” are important in ESO pricing, and are thus essential to empirical executive compensation studies.     

Supply chain finance and impacts of consumers’ sustainability awareness

Several new methods have been proposed for supply chain finance (SCF) with bank credits, but none of them mentions how to solve the borrowers’ moral hazard problems in SCF. This paper examines the moral hazard problem in supply chain financing with procurement contract (or purchase order). We show that since supply chain is an up-down directed structure, when financing with the procurement contract, the supplier’s effort monitoring task can be rendered to the procurement contract, which can secure the supplier’s optimal effort and capital choices in production. Hence, compared to separate lending, the supplier’s credit rationing problem can be mitigated, and most importantly, banks’ under-estimation on the supplier’s default risk and the over-estimation on the retailer’s default risk will both decrease. We further show that the retailer’s corporate social responsibility expenditure can increase consumers’ brand recognition, thus when facing demand shocks arising from consumer’s unexpected concerns, the retailer can better stabilize the firm value.     

政府采购的可持续供应商评价准则研究

与供应商建立战略合作关系、提高可持续发展能力是加强政府采购绩效和稳定性的有效手段,应当建立客观、科学的供应商评价和监管机制。结合失效模式、后果分析模型与区间二元语义混合加权距离测度对可持续供应商的评价准则进行风险分析和排序,为评价政府采购的供应商可持续能力提供判断依据。同时指出,政府采购流程中应当动态管理专家库和供应商信息库,制定合适的专家筛选条件,严格把控供应商资格审查,并利用科学方法确定评价准则内容和供应商选择对象。     

Screening strategies to inhibit the spread of AIDS

In this paper we explore the costs and benefits of screening programs for the human immunodeficiency virus (H1V). Because of the low prevalence rate of the virus among the general population, the cost per detected case of a program to screen the population at large is very high. We show how this cost changes with the prevalence rate, and how screening high risk groups reduces the cost per detected case. Screening has little point, however, unless there are follow-up activities to reduce the continued spread of the virus. To this end, we present a modeling framework for determination of optimal policy alternatives after screening.     

Specialty care single and multi-period location–allocation models within the Veterans Health Administration

Optimal location of specialty care services within any healthcare network is increasingly important for balancing costs, access to care, and patient-centeredness. Typical long-range planning efforts attempt to address a myriad of quantitative and qualitative issues, including within-network access within reasonable travel distances, space capacity constraints, costs, politics, and community commitments. To help inform these decisions, single and multi-period mathematical integer programs were developed that minimize total procedure, travel, non-coverage, and start-up costs to increase network capacity subject to access constraints. These models have been used to help the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) explore relationships and tradeoffs between costs, coverage, service location, and capacity and to inform larger strategic planning discussions. Results indicate significant opportunity to simultaneously reduce total cost, reduce total travel distances, and increase within-network access, the latter being linked to better care continuity and outcomes. An application to planning short and long-term sleep apnea care across the VHA New England integrated network, for example, produced 10–15% improvements in each performance measure. As an example of further insight provided by these analyses, most optimal solutions increase the amount of outside-network care, contrary to current trends and policies to reduce external referrals.     

Health-Care Payment Systems: Cost and Quality Incentives—Comment

This note analyzes the incentives for cost reduction that different payment policies provide to profit-maximizing health-care providers. Ching-to Albert Ma (1994) proposes a reimbursement mechanism that seeks to induce first-best cost reduction by using a combination of cost reimbursement and prospective payment in a model where higher effort on the part of the health-care provider reduces treatment costs. This note shows that a mechanism of this type, generally, will not result in first-best cost reduction. However, such a mechanism is optimal when the payer has efficiency and distributional concerns.     

项目采购成本分析

当前市场竞争日益激烈,如何有效控制生产成本从而实现价格优势显得尤为重要。降低采购成本是企业参与市场竞争的需要,加强采购成本的控制与管理是降低采购成本的主要手段。企业应建立全方位成本观念,完善采购制度,采取公开招标、电子采购等方式增加采购透明度,建立供应商信息库,确保采购主渠道的畅通,减少采购中间环节,选择最优采购方案,降低采购成本。     

Public and Private Provision of Health Care

One of the mechanisms that are implemented in the cost containment movement in the health care sectors in western countries is the definition, by the third-party payer, of a set of preferred providers. The insured patients have different access rules to such providers when ill. The rules specify the copayments patients must pay when using an out-of-plan care provider. This paper studies the competitive process among providers in terms of both prices and qualities. Competition is influenced by the status of providers as in-plan or out-of-plan care providers. Also, there is a moral hazard of provider choice related to the trade-off between freedom to choose and the need to hold down costs. It is possible to achieve the first-best allocation by an appropriate definition of the reimbursement scheme when decisions on prices and qualities are taken simultaneously (as in primary health care sectors). In contrast, some type of regulation is needed to achieve the optimal solution when decisions are sequential (as in specialized health care sectors). We also derive normative conclusions on how price controls should be implemented in some European Union member states.     

On the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market

Recent operations management and innovation management research emphasizes the importance of supplier integration. However, the empirical results as to the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market are ambivalent. To understand this important relationship, we incorporate two major recent developments. First, the literature has started to redefine supplier integration into two dimensions, supplier product integration and supplier process integration. Second, recent research has begun to examine spillover effects that extend beyond the direct costs and benefits of the supplier contract. Using survey data of 116 firms in the industrials, health care, and information technology industries, the results confirm our hypotheses and show that supplier product integration decelerates time-to-market while supplier process integration accelerates time-to-market. The results also show a positive relationship between supplier integration and the adoption of external technologies, which either decelerates or accelerates time-to-market depending on the level of internal exploration activities. Our research, thus, helps to open the ‘black-box’ of the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market, and provides a theoretically grounded explanation to the apparent contradictory results in prior research about the influence of supplier integration on time-to-market. In addition, we contribute to research on spillover effects by emphasizing that information technology adoption and assimilation is an important spillover effect of supplier integration.     

Optimal dividend policy with random interest rates

Several recent papers have studied the impact of macroeconomic shocks on the financial policies of firms. However, they only consider the case where these macroeconomic shocks affect the profitability of firms but not the financial markets conditions. We study the polar case where the profitability of firms is stationary, but interest rates and issuance costs are governed by an exogenous Markov chain. We characterize the optimal dividend policy and show that these two macroeconomic factors have opposing effects: all things being equal, firms distribute more dividends when interest rates are high and less when issuing costs are high.     

Choosing between single and multiple sourcing based on supplier default risk: A real options approach

The selection of a given purchasing strategy is a central activity in risky environments. Single sourcing, a powerful approach in a stable environment, can amplify a firm's exposure to risk (e.g., supplier's default) in the presence of uncertainty. Multiple sourcing, however, presents higher costs due to the management of more than one supplier. A correct evaluation from a risk management perspective is needed. This paper proposes the Real Options approach for valuing the probabilistic benefits of multiple sourcing in managing the supplier default risk (to be compared with the related higher costs). A computational model, based on the Monte Carlo simulation, was developed. The results show the (probabilistic) advantages of adopting the multiple sourcing strategy in risky environments for a specific case. The proposed sensitivity analysis is aimed at identifying the impact of the most important transactional parameters on the differential benefits of the two sourcing strategies. Thus, the model and its managerial implications represent a valid support for the decision-making process in the presence of uncertainty.