基于信号博弈的渠道成员“自主性”信息共享研究

Voluntary Information Sharing in a Channel:A Signaling-game Study

一些渠道环境下,上游制造商比下游零售商拥有更多的需求信息。本文采用'信号'博弈的方法,研究由一个具备需求预测能力的制造商与多个风险规避的零售商组成的渠道结构,并探讨制造商的'自主性'信息共享决策,即制造商获得需求预测信息之后再决定是否与零售商共享。若制造商选择不共享,零售商会依据制造商的决策(可以共享但不共享、批发价)来推测其预测信息,然后决定零售价格。研究表明:(1)当制造商预测发现市场极其好或特别差时,其会与零售商共享其预测;(2)当预测信号在相对中间范围没有特别的指向性时,制造商不会与零售商共享其预测,相反其会设定一个固定的批发价,让零售商无法准确推测其预测信息;(3)数值研究显示零售商之间的竞争越激烈或零售商越风险规避,制造商越不会与零售商共享其预测信息。

This paper studies information sharing in a channel where the manufacturer possesses better demand-forecast information than the downstream risk-averse retailers. We focus on voluntary information sharing, where the manufacturer makes the sharing decision ex post after receiving the forecast. Before setting the retail prices, the retailers will make a rational inference on the forecast based on the manufacturer’s wholesale price as well as the fact that it can share but has decided not to share. We find, first, the manufacturer will share its forecast only if the forecast is extremely big or small; otherwise, it will choose a pooling wholesale price where the retailers cannot infer the forecast. Second, the more risk-averse the retailers are,the stronger the competition among the retailers is, the less likely the manufacturer will share its forecast with the retailers.