One size fits all? Contract farming among broiler producers in China

Contract farming has been increasingly found to benefit smallholders in developing countries, yet much less is known about its role in the poultry industry where economies of scale could be more prominent. This study aims to narrow this gap by analysing the choice of contract farming among Chinese broiler producers using a nationally representative survey. Simply cost-benefit analysis and multinomial logit regression modelling are jointly employed to explain contract farming decision making especially among small producers. In contrast to many recent studies, we find that small producers, though not passively excluded, usually opt out of contract farming due to limited profitability when large producers are coexistent. Such relationship is appropriately identified through a control function approach to correct for possible endogeneity. Therefore, contract farming may not help achieve higher welfare goals for small broiler producers who actually instead seek alternative market opportunities that better realise their comparative advantages.

How to Implement the Wholesale Price Contract: Considering Competition between Supply Chains

In this paper,we develop the price competition model of two supply chains,in which each supply chain includes one core manufacturer and one retailer,respectively.The manufacturer in each supply chain sells products to the retailer through a commonly-used wholesale price contract.Each manufacturer has two options to implement the wholesale price contract:playing the Stackelberg game with the retailer and playing the bargaining game with the retailer.Based on the manufacturer's two alternative performing modes in each supply chain,we consider four combined performing modes of two competitive supply chains in the model.By comparing equilibrium results,we find that when both manufacturers choose to bargain with retailers,the sales volume increases and the sales price decreases.Moreover,the manufacturers'mode option is affected by bargaining power,product quality level,and the cost of improving product quality.Specifically,when both bargaining power and the cost of improving product quality are relatively small,both manufacturers choose to play Stackelberg game with retailers.When manufacturers'bargaining power is sufficiently large,regardless of the cost of improving product quality,both manufacturers choose to bargain with retailers.Surprisingly,when the manufacturer chooses to bargain the wholesale price with the retailer,higher product quality is not always beneficial to the retailer because the retailer may have to share part of the cost of the manufacturer.

Evolutionary Game-theoretic Analysis for Residential Users Considering Integrated Demand Response

As an important part of demand side,residential users have the characteristics of imperfect rationality and strong randomness,which are rarely considered in the existing study.Moreover,to effectively improve the energy efficiency,integrated demand response(IDR)is proposed as an effective measure to reduce the local energy supply pressure.This paper focuses on a scenario for IDR programs,in which the intelligent building aggregator(IBA)wants to encourage residential users to participate in IDR according to a proper contract price policy.To analyze how the participation degree tendency evolves over time,an evolutionary game approach is proposed considering residential users’bounded-rationality.A symmetric evolutionary game model and an asymmetric evolutionary game model are established,and the stability of equilibrium points in the above models is proven.Simulation results show that different contract price policies will obviously influence residential users’strategy,and affect the stable equilibrium points of the evolutionary game.The simulation results provide an effective reference for IBA to set proper and effective price incentives.