Blockchain Technology and Physical Oracles in the Collectibles Industry: A Dynamic Game Approach

Wholesale price versus buyback: A comparison of contracts in a supply chain with a behavioral retailer

In the market, once consumers have a low-carbon preference, they will choose green low-carbon products. The market demand for green products is not only related to product price, but also consumers’ low-carbon preference. In this way, enterprise has to consider the cost of carbon emissions in the process of production and operation. In this paper, we consider a two-level supply chain system composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The supply chain system can determine the price of products and the level of carbon emission reduction through different supply chain contracts: wholesale price contract and revenue sharing contract. However, the power control structure of a manufacturer and a retailer is different, which will further affect the decision-making strategy of the supply chain system. We set up four models (Wholesale Price—NM and NR, and Revenue-Sharing—SR and SM) of the supply chain with carbon emission reduction, and calculated and analyzed. The results show that firstly, regardless of whether the manufacturer’s power control structure or the retailer power structure is dominant, the manufacturer wholesale price with a contract on revenue-sharing is always higher than on wholesale price, and it is inversely proportional to the revenue-sharing proportion. Secondly, under the two power control structures, the carbon emission level of the manufacturer with a contract on revenue-sharing is always lower than on wholesale price, and it gradually decreases with the increase of the revenue-sharing proportion of the manufacturers. Thirdly, when the retailer dominates the supply chain, the retailer selling price with a contract on revenue-sharing is always higher than on wholesale price. Under the manufacturer’s power control structure, when the revenue-sharing ratio is small, the retailer selling price with a contract on revenue-sharing is higher than on wholesale price; when the revenue-sharing ratio is large, the retailer selling price with a contract on revenue-sharing is lower than on wholesale price. Finally, the validity of the model is verified by an example, and the sensitivity of the parameters is analyzed.

Sales mode selection of fresh food supply chain based on blockchain technology under different channel competition

We investigate RFID adoption strategies under wholesale price and buy-back contracts in a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer who faces inventory misplacement and demand forecast error. RFID can alleviate the misplacement problem, and can reduce demand forecast error by shortening order lead time. By a newsvendor model, we characterise the optimal contract terms in the supply chain without and with RFID adoption, respectively. We further analyse how the contract terms depend on RFID-related parameters (e.g. salable rate and demand forecast error). We find that both without and with RFID, the wholesale price contract will lead to the double marginalisation problem, while the buy-back contract can coordinate the supply chain. We show that the supply chain adopts RFID if and only if the tagging cost is below a threshold; the threshold is in negative correlation to the demand forecast error. The supply chain is more willing to adopt RFID under the buy-back contract than under the wholesale price contract. RFID adoption can sometimes lessen the double marginalisation problem under the wholesale price contract, improving the supply chain efficiency. A smaller RFID tagging cost or a reduced forecast error do not necessarily lead to higher supply chain efficiency.

ABSTRACTThis study considers a decentralized supply chain in which a downstream manufacturer purchases a component from an upstream supplier privileged with private information on supply disruption risk. The supplier's initial reliability, asymmetric to the manufacturer, is either low or high. To guard against disruption risk by enhancing supply reliability, the manufacturer employs two representative contracts, namely, the wholesale price contract and the screening menu contract. We first examine the push and pull regimes under the wholesale price contract, and find that the manufacturer prefers the pull regime. Under the screening menu contract, we also consider two regimes: contracting the high‐type and low‐type supplier, and contracting only the high‐type supplier. From the perspective of the manufacturer, the regime that allows contracting both types of the supplier dominates the regime of contracting only the high‐type supplier under certain conditions. Comparing the wholesale price and screening menu contracts, we derive several interesting results. First, under specific conditions, the wholesale price contract is dominant for the manufacturer when the reliability enhancement cost or initial supply reliability heterogeneity is relatively high; otherwise, the screening menu contract is more favorable to the manufacturer. Second, in the pull regime, more information transparency may be detrimental to the manufacturer when the supplier's initial reliability is low, whereas the high‐type supplier can surprisingly yield a high profit under information asymmetry. Third, the low‐type supplier's preference on information transparency hinges on the reliability enhancement cost in the push regime.

To further reduce carbon emissions, supply chain members implement the low-carbon production process and use varieties of contracts to coordinate the channel. Considering the effect of emission reduction, this paper studies a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. Two supply chain members dedicate to maximize profits by reducing their products' carbon emissions under two different contracts: the wholesale price contract and the consignment contract. The Stackelberg differential game is used, and the optimal strategies of emission reduction effort, wholesale, and retail price in the two situations are studied. The results show that the Pareto improvement for the whole supply chain can be reached under the consignment contract. However, the specific impacts on the retailer and the manufacturer are different. When consumers have a higher level of environmental awareness, the retailer tends to decrease her proportion of sales revenue under the consignment contract. At that time, choosing the wholesale price contract is more favorable for the retailer. However, as the retailer's proportion of sales revenue becomes lower, the proportion of revenue belonging to the manufacturer will increase. It would be better for the manufacturer to choose the consignment contract.

Blockchain Technology for Ophthalmology: Coming of Age?

The use of blockchain technology in private investment funds is proliferating. Using a dataset of private investment fund advisers that utilize blockchain technology (N=120), we explore the core commonalities and differences in the use of blockchain technology between European and American fund advisers. The data analysis in this article suggests that the market for private investment funds who invest in- and utilize blockchain technology appears to be near equally divided between the US and the EU, with Russia and China playing significant roles. We interpret parts of the data as suggesting that larger private investment fund advisers in Europe may be more willing to make the required investments into blockchain infrastructure whereas in the US the legacy systems utilized by larger private investment fund advisers create barriers to entry for larger advisers to invest in- and utilize blockchain technology. Larger European fund advisers use the technology predominantly to invest in- and secure crypto assets whereas American fund advisers appear to use the smart contracting features of the technology more frequently to build more advanced crypto businesses and business structures via blockchain technology. While the overall proportion of strategies of private investment funds that utilize modern technologies, including blockchain technology, is still small, as the private investment fund industry’s use of blockchain technology grows and accelerates, the innovation benefits for private investment funds and their clients promise lasting change for the industry.

Setting performance targets and managing to achieve them is fundamental to business success. As a result, it is common for managers to adopt a satisficing objective—that is, to maximize the probability of achieving some preset target profit level. This is especially true when companies are increasingly engaged in short-term relationships enabled by electronic commerce. In this chapter, our main focus is a decentralized supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer, both with the satisficing objective. The supply chain is examined under three types of commonly used contracts: wholesale price, buy back, and quantity flexibility contracts. Because a coordinating contract has to be Pareto optimal regardless of the bargaining powers among the agents, we first identify the Pareto-optimal contract(s) for each contractual form. Second, we identify the contractual forms that are capable of coordination of the supply chain with the satisficing objectives. In contrast to the well-known results for the supply chain with the objectives of expected profit maximization, we show that wholesale price contracts can coordinate the supply chain with the satisficing objectives, whereas buy back contracts cannot. Furthermore, quantity flexibility contracts have to degenerate into wholesale price contracts to coordinate the supply chain. This provides an important justification for the popularity of wholesale price contracts besides their simplicities and lower administration costs. Finally, we discuss possible extensions to the model by considering different types of objectives for different agents.

Setting performance targets and managing to achieve them is fundamental to business success. As a result, it is common for managers to adopt a satisficing objective—that is, to maximize the probability of achieving some preset target profit level. This is especially true when companies are increasingly engaged in short-term relationships enabled by electronic commerce. In this chapter, our main focus is a decentralized supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer, both with the satisficing objective. The supply chain is examined under three types of commonly used contracts: wholesale price, buy back, and quantity flexibility contracts. Because a coordinating contract has to be Pareto optimal regardless of the bargaining powers among the agents, we first identify the Pareto-optimal contract(s) for each contractual form. Second, we identify the contractual forms that are capable of coordination of the supply chain with the satisficing objectives. In contrast to the well-known results for the supply chain with the objectives of expected profit maximization, we show that wholesale price contracts can coordinate the supply chain with the satisficing objectives, whereas buy back contracts cannot. Furthermore, quantity flexibility contracts have to degenerate into wholesale price contracts to coordinate the supply chain. This provides an important justification for the popularity of wholesale price contracts besides their simplicities and lower administration costs. Finally, we discuss possible extensions to the model by considering different types of objectives for different agents.

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged rapidly in the field of smart home automation. However, the short battery life, low processing power, and limited memory of IoT technology result in limited fault lines. According to the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) report, approximately 70% of IoT devices are vulnerable. However, it can also be easily hacked and exploited. By utilizing blockchain technology, the fragile structure of IoT can be made more robust and reliable by tackling its vulnerable nature. The study aims to assess the security of blockchain technology by launching a predetermined attack on the MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE (MITM) in a smart home environment. This testing attack is intended to prevent various threats and make the system more reliable and secure. Several tests have been conducted to determine whether the indigenous IoT protocol (MQTT) is more secure than blockchain technology. As a result, the MQTT protocol was replaced with the blockchain protocol in this study. This study examined Hyperledger, which is associated with the Chaincode, among the various blockchain platforms. Three IoT systems have been assessed for security by simulating Man in the Middle attacks and examining their security features. Our results show that the blockchain is more secure for IoT systems compared with MQTT protocols.

This study examines how wholesale price discrimination (WD) by a supplier affects different parties in a supply chain involving a common supplier distributing homogeneous products through two competing retailers with different costs under wholesale price contracts. Especially, we allow for contract unobservability, where the contract terms between the supplier and each retailer are secret to the rival retailer. Intuitively, given the downstream asymmetry, WD should be more advantageous than the uniform wholesale price (UW) scheme for the supplier. This is true under observable contracts, as we show that WD benefits the supplier and less efficient retailer but hurts the more efficient retailer, supply chain, and consumers. Under unobservability, however, we find that the supplier may be better off by committing to UW. The intuition is that contract unobservability induces the supplier to set lower discretionary wholesale prices, which can outweigh the benefits of pricing flexibility. Consequently, a lack of commitment to UW can benefit both retailers, improve supply chain efficiency, and increase consumer surplus. Our findings suggest that policymakers should be cautious about imposing restrictions on WD. We also consider three extensions for robustness and offer new insights.

The advance selling (AS) has been widely applied in fresh industry for it can elevating the customer experience and increase flexibility thus profit for a retailer. However, the introduction of the AS will have an impact on spot market in pricing strategy, market share and the profit of the retailer. Hence, to coordinate the supply chain and improve the efficiency of the agricultural supply chain, a two-stage game theory model is constructed to analyze the effects of AS on three classic contracts: wholesale price, quantity discount and revenue-sharing contract. This paper also discusses the boundary conditions of whether a retailer should sell in advance. The conclusions of this paper are as follows: First, revenue-sharing contracts are superior to wholesale price and quantity discount contracts when retailers sell in advance, the wholesale price contract can perform better than the quantity discount contract in the presence of AS if the contract parameter is properly set. Second, a revenue-sharing contract that normally coordinates the supply chain can performs poorly when the retailer sells in advance that the social welfare would be higher if using a quantity discount contract instead. These conclusions have important implications for suppliers when retailers sell in advance. Such suppliers need to design appropriate contracts to distribute FAP that carefully take into consideration the AS activities in the market.

The spread of blockchain technology is gaining ground worldwide, including in the supply chain and logistics sector. Its proliferation is expected to transform supply chains. Academic research is needed to investigate the reasons for and barriers to adoption. The objective of this study is to explore the blockchain (BC) platform and its inputs as technological solutions. In addition, the application of blockchain technology in managing supply chain (SC) business processes like shipment tracking, authenticity, and identification is also a focus of research. This research was carried out in three ways to explore the issue. Expert interviews were used to develop a research framework for the comparative analysis of BC platforms to find out the benefits and the barriers of blockchain adoption. In association with the diffusion of the technology, a qualitative comparative analysis was applied to benchmark blockchain platform providers. We analysed the blockchain-supply chain market by component, provider, type, and the conditions of usage. As part of this research, the Forbes TOP 50 companies were analysed by business area, country of origin, application area, and benefits in order to see in which area they applied blockchain technology and what improvements they have achieved. The results revealed that blockchain use in supply chains of selected industries has outstanding benefits of transparency, trustworthiness, traceability, and cost efficiencies which give businesses an advantage in terms of implementation costs, technology needs, human resources, legal environments, volatile costs, and security. In the supply chain, Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum are the most widely used blockchain platforms. For practical implication, the application and benefits of BC in SC were analysed, and the results indicate the traceability, sustainability-related, cost, and time-saving benefits.

Rapid economic growth and industrialization have brought material abundance and convenience, but also social and environmental problems such as global warming, climate change, and ozone depletion. For this reason, the public and governments have continued to make efforts to reduce carbon oxide emissions worldwide over the past few decades. To achieve this mission, cap-and-trade regulations have been introduced as one of the most effective market-based mechanisms to control carbon emissions. Accordingly, sustainability efforts, including the development of green products and innovating manufacturing technologies, are being made by companies in supply chains to reduce their carbon emissions. In the context of sustainability innovations and carbon emission constraints, this article investigates pricing decisions, the degree of sustainability efforts, and carbon caps under two different supply chain contracts—in this case, wholesale price contract and cost-sharing contract. This article establishes a Stackelberg game model under each of the supply chain contract types and presents the equilibrium decisions made by players of the game. Major findings of this article reveal that (i) the performance of the supply chain is considerably affected by the presence of a carbon cap; (ii) the higher the carbon cap set by a government is, the more sustainability innovation efforts the supply chain makes; and (iii) the supply chain can improve its profitability and its sustainability under a cost-sharing contract.