1,721,090 research outputs found
Vertical Contracts in a Supply Chain and the Bullwhip Effect
No full textThis paper shows that decentralized supply chains, in which upstream firms use linear wholesale prices, may experience lower upstream production and downstream sales volatility than vertically integrated supply chains and may be less susceptible to the bullwhip effect by which the variance of upstream production exceeds the variance of downstream sales. The reason is that decentralized supply chains exhibit a price effect, whereby upstream producers raise wholesale prices in the case of positive demand shocks and lower wholesale prices in the case of negative demand shocks. Whereas upstream producers benefit from the price effect and, thus, from a dampening of the bullwhip effect, downstream firms may lose, and overall supply chain profit may decrease. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.This paper shows that decentralized supply chains, in which upstream firms use linear wholesale prices, may experience lower upstream production and downstream sales volatility than vertically integrated supply chains and may be less susceptible to the bullwhip effect by which the variance of upstream production exceeds the variance of downstream sales. The reason is that decentralized supply chains exhibit a price effect, whereby upstream producers raise wholesale prices in the case of positive demand shocks and lower wholesale prices in the case of negative demand shocks. Whereas upstream producers benefit from the price effect and, thus, from a dampening of the bullwhip effect, downstream firms may lose, and overall supply chain profit may decrease. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management
Incentives for Information Revelation in a Supply Chain and the Bullwhip Effect
No full textGetting downstream firms in a supply chain to share private information about consumer demand with their suppliers is generally considered a prerequisite to dampening the bullwhip effect, that is, the amplification of demand shocks as they pass upstream in a supply chain. If downstream firms are reluctant to share their demand information, how can they best be incentivized to do so, and what does the optimal incentive scheme imply for the bullwhip effect and supply chain efficiency? We examine these questions by developing a supply chain model with asymmetric information, and show that the supplier should optimally follow a two-pronged strategy. One prong consists of the optimal incentive contract to induce information revelation. Information revelation requires a distortion in the downstream firm’s orders that makes them more responsive to demand shocks, which tends to strengthen the bullwhip effect. The other prong helps to reduce this distortion and dampen the bullwhip effect. It consists of getting the downstream firm to increase its initial order and stock up on inventory before it learns about demand. A larger initial order is sufficient to eliminate the bullwhip effect if demand shocks are not too persistent. Our results hold if the marginal production cost does not increase too quickly with output and the inventory holding cost is not too high
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Essays on Firms and Workers in the Global Economy
Get PDFThis dissertation comprises three independent papers on two distinct topics. Chapter 2 is situated in the fields of international trade and development economics. I connect the newly arising literature on the impact of misallocations in inputs on countries' aggregate productivity levels with empirical studies on trade in intermediate inputs.
Chapters 3 and 4 analyze previously unreported aspects of structural transformation and a phenomenon that has been gaining more attention recently - `servitization'
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Über die Anreize umweltpolitischer Instrumente insaubere Technologien zu investieren bei Unsicherheit über denVerfügbarkeitszeitpunkt zukünftiger Technologien
Get PDFDie Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Investition in neue, emissionsärmere Technologien, bei dem der Entscheider eine große, langfristige Investition tätigt und den dafür optimalen Zeitpunkt wählt. Dabei wird sowohl der gesamtwirtschaftliche Kontext, also die effiziente Allokation der neuen Technologien, als auch die einzelwirtschaftliche Entscheidung analysiert. Die Bewertung des Projekt hängt dabei zum einen von dem erwarteten Verfügbarkeitszeitpunkt der zukünftigen Technologien, zum anderen aber von der Art und der Stringenz der Regulierung der Emissionen ab.
Es ist unmittelbar klar, dass eine statische Regulierung wie eine langfristig konstante Steuer einen anderen Einfluss auf die optimale Investionsstrategie hat als eine dynamische, wie zum Beispiel eine durch Ausgabe von Zertifikaten. Im ersten Fall würden alle Akteure gleich entscheiden, im zweiten Fall erscheint es intuitiv, dass im Gleichgewicht unterscheidliche Unternehmen unterschiedelich Technologien adoptieren.
Daher ist es klar, dass die Berücksichtigung zukünftiger Verbesserungen der Technologie und der Option, auf diese zu warten, auch eine Auswirkung auf die optimale Umweltpolitik hat. Umgekehrt hat, wie illustriert, die Setzung und Art des Instruments einen Einfluss auf die Bewertung des Investitionsprojekts.
Aber auch die Art des Einflusses auf das Investitionsverhalten ist ex ante nicht klar : Betrachten wir noch einmal eine langfristig konstante Steuer. Deren Erhöhung führt auf der einen Seite ceteris paribus zu höheren Kosten vor dem Zeitpunkt der Investition, auf der anderen Seite aber ceteris paribus auch zu höheren Kosten nach der Investition. Der
erste Effekt induziert einen Anreiz, früher zu investieren, der zweite Effekt hingegen induziert, auf eine bessere Technologie zu warten und später zu investieren. Es stellt sich also die Frage, welcher der beiden Effekte dominiert.
Wenn wir nur zwei neue Technologien unterstellen, vereinfacht
sich die Frage darauf, ob die Firmen in die erste neue
Technologie investieren oder auf die Zweite warten. Sind die
Anreize dynamisch, das heißt, der Preis für Emissionen sinkt, wenn mehr Firmen bereits investiert haben, wie es zum Beispiel bei Zertifikaten der Fall ist, so verändert sich auch der
Optionswert der Entscheidung. Daher stellt sich sowohl die Frage, ob im Gleichgewicht wirklich verschiedene Firmen verschiedene Technologien adoptieren werden, als auch die Frage, ob dies gesamtwirtschaftlich effizient sein kann. Aus Sicht des Staats ist es zudem von Interesse, ob sich die effiziente Allokation wie im Fall einer neuen Technologie, dies wurde 2003 von Requate und Unold gezeigt, durch Anpassung der Instrumente erreichen lässt.
Diese Fragestellungen werden ausführlich analysiert und, soweit dies möglich ist, theoretisch beantwortet
Parallel Trade of Pharmaceuticals. Conflicts in Health Policy Objectives and Regulatory Externalities in the EU Internal Market
Get PDFHealth policy in the EU is characterized by two underlying conflicts: First, government interventions or pharmaceutical parallel trade, i.e. trade outside the manufacturer's authorized distribution channel, may induce a conflict between different health policy objectives such as expenditure reduction and distributive objectives. Second, health policy is in the competence of member states, but the EU internal market may generate externalities of national decisions.
This thesis addresses these conflicts of pharmaceutical regulation within the EU.
Initially, I compare a maximum price system (price cap regulation) and a reference price system (reimbursement limit) with respect to their performance in different health policy objectives. The reference price system reduces public pharmaceutical expenditure to a larger extent, but results in higher financial exposure of patients and lower access to pharmaceuticals.
The subsequent chapters investigate the link between pharmaceutical parallel trade and pharmaceutical regulation.
Chapter 4 illustrates that national decisions on health policy, in particular, changes in coinsurance rates, result in externalities under parallel trade. Parallel trade generates a price-decreasing competition effect in the destination country and a price-increasing double marginalization effect in the source country. An increase of the coinsurance rates in the destination country mitigates the double marginalization effect in the source country. An increase of the coinsurance rate in the source country reinforces the competition effect in the destination country.
A subsequent chapter compares a coinsurance scheme (consumers pay a percentage of the drug price out-of-pocket) and an indemnity insurance scheme (reimbursement is independent of the drug price) with respect to the consequences of parallel trade on health care systems, especially on changes of co-payments and changes of public pharmaceutical expenditure. In the destination country, co-payments for patients decrease to a larger extent under indemnity insurance, reductions of public pharmaceutical expenditure occur only under coinsurance. In the source country, co-payments increase less under coinsurance, health expenditure is reduced more under indemnity insurance.
The last chapter studies the effect of pharmaceutical regulation at the wholesale level, in particular, maximum wholesale margins (restriction of pricing by the intermediary) and mandatory rebates (restriction of the pricing by the manufacturer) on drug prices, quantities, and public pharmaceutical expenditure. Maximum wholesale margins enhance the manufacturer's ability to reduce competition from parallel trade in the destination country by increasing wholesale prices. In a symmetric equilibrium, maximum wholesale margins of both countries party offset each other, mandatory rebates reinforce each other
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