供应链中考虑零售商损失规避的交易契约研究

Contracting with a Loss-Averse Retailer in a Supply Chain

一个零售商和一个供应商组成的供应链系统,零售商以一定的概率具备损失规避特性,供应商根据此概率大小设计交易契约最大化自身利润。首先,采用博弈和激励机制理论,分别研究了混同契约和甄别契约的设计过程。在混同契约下,供应商针对不同类型的零售商制定统一批发价格,零售商根据该批发价格决定其最优订货量;在甄别契约下,供应商通过设计契约菜单激励零售商显示其真实的损失规避特性。得出,当产品生产成本较低时,供应商可以设计出有效的甄别契约,通过比较混同与甄别契约下的供应商最优期望利润得到最优契约;而当产品成本较高时,不存在有效的甄别契约,此时混同契约即为最优契约。其次,通过数值模拟,对比了在产品生产成本较低时的两种契约下,零售商具有损失规避特征的概率及其损失规避程度对供应商期望利润及零售商期望效用、期望利润的影响;得出,当存在有效的甄别契约时,供应商采用甄别契约总比采用混同契约所得的期望利润更高。

This paper incorporates loss aversion into the newsvendor framework by assuming that there are psychological costs of leftovers and stock-outs based on the asymmetry theory of losses and gains with respect to a reference point.Accordingly,this paper analyzes the impact of loss aversion on contract design in the supply chain system by constructing a subjective utility function of the loss-averse member and postulating the loss aversion character as private information.The outline of this paper is as follows.In section 1,we review the existing literatures about how loss aversion affects supply chain members＇behaviors and how to design a supply contract under asymmetric information.In section 2,we establish a supply chain system composed of a rational supplier and a retailer with a probability of owning loss aversion character.The supplier＇s task is to develop optimal contracts （i.e.,pooling contract or screening contract） to maximize its expected profit given the probability of the retailer＇s owning loss aversion character.In sections 3 and 4,we propose the design processes of the pooling contract and screening contract respectively：Under the pooling contract,the supplier decides the unified wholesale price for two different types of retailers （i.e.,loss-averse retailer and loss-neutral retailer）.The retailer determines the order quantity according to its type.Under the screening contract,the supplier designs a contract menu containing both wholesale prices and order quantities in order to disclose the retailer＇s true type.In section 5,we establish some linear relationships between unit psychological costs and the product ＇s sale price.We further compare the expected profits （utilities） of the supplier and the retailer under the two contracts through a numerical simulation.Finally,we give concluding remarks in section 6.We obtain the optimal wholesale price for the supplier and optimal order quantity for different retailers under the pooling contract.We find find that the supplier ‘ s optimal wholesale price has a positive correlation with the probability of retailer ‘ s owning loss aversion character and retailer＇ s unit psychological cost of stock-outs.However,the supplier‘s optimal wholesale price has a negative correlation with retailer＇ s unit psychological cost of leftovers.In addition,we find that the optimal order quantities of the two types of retailers have a negative correlation with the probability of retailer＇s owning loss aversion character,but have different correlations with retailer ＇s unit psychological costs.The loss-neutral retailer ＇s optimal order quantity has a positive （negative）correlation with the unit psychological cost of leftovers （stock-outs） while the loss-averse retailer＇s optimal order quantity has a positive correlation with the unit psychological cost of stock-outs and a uncertain correlation with the unit psychological cost of leftovers （depending on the relationship of the unit production cost and other parameters）.Under the model of screening contract,we find that effective screening contract can be designed only under the condition that the unit production cost is relatively low and supplier can choose the optimal contract by comparing his optimal expected profits under the two contracts.Otherwise,the pooling contract is optimal.Our simulation,in which the unit production cost is relatively low,demonstrates that the supplier can achieve a higher expected utility under the screening contract as long as the effective screening contract can be designed.