Financial hedging in two-stage sustainable commodity supply chains

Abstract

This paper studies the optimal financial hedging strategy and sustainable development in four supply chain structures. To help manufacturers reasonably hedge the risks caused by the fluctuation of input commodity prices, we use an index-based price contract by which manufacturers can transfer part of their risk to downstream retailers and realize risk-sharing in the supply chain. We discuss the optimal hedging strategy and the product's green degree in four structures: monopoly (manufacturer sets contract), monopoly with Nash bargaining, retailer competition, and manufacturer competition. Our model follows two-stage Stackelberg game, which delivers us the results that the hedge ratio is positively related to the consumer's preference for green products but is inversely related to the green product research and development costs. Interestingly, in the manufacturer competition supply chain, the profits of both manufacturers increase significantly when the input commodity price fluctuates slightly, but as that fluctuation continually increases, the profit of one manufacturer declines, while the profit of the other rises slowly. Considering another perspective, green degree competition harms the profits of the manufacturers and the retailer, as well as decreasing the green degree.