The effects of customer rebates and retailer incentives on a manufacturer's profits and sales

In some industries such as automotive, production costs are largely fixed and therefore maximizing revenue is the main objective. Manufacturers use promotions directed to the end customers and/or retailers in their distribution channels to increase sales and market share. We study a game theoretical model to examine the impact of “retailer incentive” and “customer rebate” promotions on the manufacturer's pricing and the retailer's ordering/sales decisions. The main tradeoff is that customer rebates are given to every customer, while the use of retailer incentives is controlled by the retailer. We consider several models with different demand characteristics and information asymmetry between the manufacturer and a price discriminating retailer, and we determine which promotion would benefit the manufacturer under which market conditions. When demand is deterministic, we find that retailer incentives increase the manufacturer's profits (and sales) while customer rebates do not unless they lead to market expansion. When the uncertainty in demand (“market potential”) is high, a customer rebate can be more profitable than the retailer incentive for the manufacturer. With numerical examples, we provide additional insights on the profit gains by the right choice of promotion.© 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2010     

Economic reconstruction amidst conflict: Insights from Afghanistan and Iraq

Economic reconstruction typically takes place after the end of war. Yet recently, economic reconstruction has been viewed as a means to ‘win hearts and minds’ during ongoing conflict. Drawing on a variety of reconstruction experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq, we identify four ‘reconstruction traps’ that result from the incentives and constraints faced by actors involved in economic reconstruction during ongoing conflict. These traps include: 1. the credible commitment trap, 2. the knowledge trap, 3. the political economy trap, and 4. the bureaucracy trap. Avoiding these traps is critical for successful economic reconstruction; and we discuss potential strategies for doing so.     

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND CULTURE

We address empirically the question of why international economic sanctions are, or are not, chosen as instruments of foreign policy and the question of what determines their success. We hypothesize that cultural linkages between nations are an important factor in explaining both instrument choice and conflict outcomes. Countries that share significant cultural attributes are found to be less likely to apply economic sanctions against one another than countries lacking such cultural ties. However, it is precisely in the case of culturally similar sender and target nations that sanctions are most likely to succeed.     

SECURITY BRIEF

Using crime review figures for four randomly selected states in Nigeria, this study examines cases of kidnapping and its implications for the national economy. The findings reveal that kidnapping is consistently on the increase in Nigeria and is not evenly spread across regions. It is shown that 15 cases were recorded in 2005 and 43 cases in 2008. In 2009, 138 cases were officially recorded, of which 22% and 76% occurred in Rivers and Edo states respectively. Findings further showed that modern kidnapping in Nigeria is triggered by resource control disputes directed both at oil expatriate workers and at prominent citizens, politicians and members of their families. The crisis, which came to the fore in 2005, has forced oil production shutdowns of up to 800 000 barrels per day. The study concludes that kidnapping is becoming a serious crime in Nigeria with significant negative implications for foreign investment, national foreign exchange earnings, and revenue generation.     

Selling to strategic and loss‐averse consumers: Stocking,procurement, and product design policies

Motivated by the presence of loss‐averse decision making behavior in practice, this article considers a supply chain consisting of a firm and strategic consumers who possess an S‐shaped loss‐averse utility function. In the model, consumers decide the purchase timing and the firm chooses the inventory level. We find that the loss‐averse consumers' strategic purchasing behavior is determined by their perceived gain and loss from strategic purchase delay, and the given rationing risk. Thus, the firm that is cognizant of this property tailors its inventory stocking policy based on the consumers' loss‐averse behavior such as their perceived values of gain and loss, and their sensitivity to them. We also demonstrate that the firm's equilibrium inventory stocking policy reflects both the economic logic of the traditional newsvendor inventory model, and the loss‐averse behavior of consumers. The equilibrium order quantity is significantly different from those derived from models that assume that the consumers are risk neutral and homogeneous in their valuations. We show that the firm that ignores strategic consumer's loss‐aversion behavior tends to keep an unnecessarily high inventory level that leads to excessive leftovers. Our numerical experiments further reveal that in some extreme cases the firm that ignores strategic consumer's loss‐aversion behavior generates almost 92% more leftovers than the firm that possesses consumers’ loss‐aversion information and takes it into account when making managerial decisions. To mitigate the consumer's forward‐looking behavior, we propose the adoption of the practice of agile supply chain management, which possesses the following attributes: (i) procuring inventory after observing real‐time demand information, (ii) enhanced design (which maintains the current production mix but improves the product performance to a higher level), and (iii) customized design (which maintains the current performance level but increases the variety of the current production line to meet consumers’ specific demands). We show that such a practice can induce the consumer to make early purchases by increasing their rationing risk, increasing the product value, or diversifying the product line. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 435–453, 2015     

浅析经济原则在网络语言中的应用

随着网络技术的发展,网络语言作为一种新的语言媒体和社会方言,越来越得到人们的重视。在不同的学术领域,专家对网络语言作出不同的诠释和研究。主要从构词、句法、非语言符号三个角度来分析经济原则在网络语言中的普遍使用,并从聊天室中收集、归纳、分析相关语料来证明经济原则的存在,及在网络空间中普遍使用的原因。对网络语言的深入研究,将更有助于人们了解语言在以高科技为背景条件下发展趋势。当网络语言冲击传统语言时,要树立正确的态度面对语言的发展。     

市场经济体制下火灾隐患的经济学分析及对策

运用经济学的手段阐述了市场经济体制下火灾隐患产生的经济学原因,并从经济学角度提出了解决问题的对策.     

Determining newspaper marketing zones using contiguous clustering

We develop a heuristic procedure for partitioning graphs into clusters of nodes such that each cluster of nodes induces a connected subgraph with the objective of minimizing the differences within clusters as measured by the total differences between all pairs of nodes of a cluster. We apply our procedure to determine optimal delivery zones for community sections of a major newspaper while including a number of operational constraints. Our results demonstrate a 18–56% improvement in the total differences within the zones designed over the usual intuitive heuristics. Given the magnitude of the revenue generated by larger local newspapers through zoning, our method demonstrates how better zoning can significantly enhance the value of segmentation. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

析替代国制度的不公平性及对策

替代国制度是西方国家反倾销法中确定“非市场经济国家”出口产品正常价值所使用的方法,这种方法完全不考虑出口国产品的成本优势。因此,以这种方法确定出口产品的正常价值是非常不合理的,致使中国在反倾销诉讼中处于极为不利的地位。替代国制度的产生及根源,替代国制度对中国的损害及不公平性,中国应采取的对策。     

循环经济与可持续发展

循环经济和知识经济并称为21世纪发展新亮点,也是世纪之交人类社会可持续发展的两大趋势。人类社会在经历了漫长的发展历史之后,正处于一种大量的资源、能量的耗费,大量的废物进入生存环境的状态,自然环境一次又一次向人类敲响警钟。本文试从循环经济这一视角来对其与可持续发展的问题进行探讨。