Overview and classification of coordination contracts within forward and reverse supply chains

Among coordination mechanisms, contracts are valuable tools used in both theory and practice to coordinate various supply chains. The focus of this paper is to present an overview of contracts and a classification of coordination contracts and contracting literature in the form of classification schemes. The two criteria used for contract classification, as resulted from contracting literature, are transfer payment contractual incentives and inventory risk sharing. The overview classification of the existing literature has as criteria the level of detail used in designing the coordination models with applicability on the forward and reverse supply chains.Coordination contracts; forward supply chain; reverse supply chain

Government involvement in liberalised gas markets; a welfare-economic analysis of Dutch gas-depletion policy

This report analyses the welfare effects of two major components of the Dutch gas-depletion policy: the offtake guarantee for small-fields gas and the cap on production from the Groningen field. We conclude that the benefits of offtake guarantee currently may outweigh the costs, but a further development of the gas market would reverse this picture. The cost of the offtake guarantee is that it gives operators reduced incentives to respond optimally to short-term changes in market conditions compared to a competitive market. Regarding the cap on Groningen (42.5 bcm per year), we find that this measure is inefficient when the cap is binding, i.e. restricting the production from the Groningen field. The costs of capping Groningen production follow from shifting returns to the future. The benefits of this measures consist of slightly positive effects on small-fields production and positive benefits for security of supply. Read the�background documents: CPB Memorandum 143: "Market failures and government policies in gas markets" CPB Memorandum 144: "NATGAS: a model of the European natural gas market" �

The Role of Auctions in Allocating Public Resources

This paper provides an economic framework within which to consider the effectiveness and limitations of auction markets. The paper looks at the use of auctions as a policy instrument and the effects of auction design on consumer interests, the efficient allocation of resources, and industry competitiveness.Australia; Research; Ascending-bid auction; Auctions; Bidders; Conservation funds; Descending-bid auction; Dutch auction; English auction; Environmental Management; First-price sealed-bid auction; Infrastructure; Markets; Oral auction; Outcry auction; Pollutant emission permits; Power supply contracts; Public resources; Radio- spectrum; Second-price sealed-bid auction Spectrum licences; Vickrey auction; Water rights;

“Spot, Bilateral and Futures Trading in Electricity Markets. Implications for Stability”

The design of wholesale electricity markets in the transition towards liberalization presents significant differences from country to country. Some spot markets have imposed the concentration of transactions to ensure market liquidity. Other markets are based on bilateral trading. The debate about the optimal trading mechanism mainly concentrates on how to deal with the trade off between the liquidity of the market and the stability of the system. The solution chosen by some market is a mandatory pool with a regulated market for electricity derivatives, that allows to hedge price volatility and to mitigate market power. This paper investigates whether, in the presence of a futures market, spot and bilateral trading can operate together and what are possible outcomes in terms of liquidity of the spot market and stability of the system. The paper extends existing literature on the role of futures market on the behavior of spot market prices, developing a multi-period model in which electricity consumers can choose whether to trade on the spot market or negotiate bilateral contracts. Results suggest that a spot market with futures contracts and a market for bilateral contracts are not necessarily alternative ways to manage stability problems, but may co-exist with positive and synergic outcomes on price behaviors and market power.Derivatives, Electricity, Market power, Hedging

A NUMERICAL QUADRATURE APPROACH TO OPTION VALUATION IN WATER MARKETS

The standard Black-Scholes approach to option valuation becomes cumbersome and may fail to yield a solution when applied to non-standard options such as those emerging in water markets. An alternative tool, numerical quadrature, avoids some restrictive assumptions of the Black-Scholes framework and can more easily price options with complex structures.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Subjective Performance Measures in Optimal Incentive Contracts

Objective measures of performance are seldom perfect. In response, incentive contracts often include important subjective components that mitigate incentive distortions caused by imperfect objective measures. This paper explores the combined use of subjective and objective performance measures in (respectively) implicit and explicit incentive contracts. Naturally, objective and subjective measures often are substitutes, sometimes strikingly so: we show that if objective measures are sufficiently close to perfect then no implicit contracts are feasible (because the firm's fallback position after reneging on an implicit contact is too attractive). We also show, however, that objective and subjective measures can reinforce each other: if objective measures become more accurate then in some circumstances the optimal contract puts more weight on subjective measures (because the improved objective measures increase the value of the ongoing relationship, and so reduce the firm's incentive to renege). We also analyze the use of subjective weights on objective performance measures, and provide case-study evidence consistent with our analyses.

Quantity discount contract for supply chain coordination with false failure returns

Consumer return attracts more and more academic attention due to its rapidly expanding size, and a large portion of it falls into the category of false failure return, which refers to return without functional defect. In this paper, we exclusively consider profit results from exerting costly effort to reduce false failure returns in a reverse supply chain consisting of a retailer and a supplier. The supply chain as a whole has strong incentive to reduce false failure returns because it can avoid much reprocessing cost associated. But typically, retailers enjoy a full credit provided by suppliers in case of returns, and hence they may not have sufficient incentives to exert enough effort for supply chain profit maximization. In some scenarios they may even have the motivation to actually encourage such returns. We suggest using a coordination contract to resolve such profit conflicts. The contract we propose is a quantity discount contract specifying a payment to the retailer with an amount exponentially decreasing in the number of false failure returns. We give explicit forms of such contracts given different assumptions about distribution of the number of returns and we also prove that such contract is capable of increasing both retailer's and supplier's profit simultaneously. Besides, when the contract is used together with other forward supply chain coordination contracts in a closed-loop chain, it is shown that it can act to deter retailer's potential incentive to encourage false failure returns. Moreover, some modifications of the contract may lead to easy allocation of incremental profit within the supply chain. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 6th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC 2010), Yantai, Shandong, China, 10-12 August 2010. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Natural Computation, 2010, v. 8, p. 4450-445

Stepwise Green Investment under Policy Uncertainty

We analyse how market price and policy uncertainty, in the form of random provision or retraction of a subsidy, interact to affect the optimal time of investment and the size of a renewable energy (RE) project that can be completed in either a single (lumpy investment) or multiple stages (stepwise investment). The subsidy takes the form of a fixed premium on top of the electricity price, and, therefore, investment is subject to electricity price uncertainty. We show that the risk of a permanent retraction (provision) of a subsidy increases (decreases) the incentive to invest, yet lowers (raises) the amount of installed capacity, and that this result is more pronounced as the size of the subsidy increases. Additionally, we show that increasing the number of policy interventions lowers the expected value of a subsidy and the size of the project. Furthermore, we illustrate that, although an increase in the size of a subsidy lowers the relative value of the stepwise investment strategy, the expected value of a lumpy investment strategy is still lower than that of stepwise investment

A framework for the analysis of mineral tax policy in sub-Saharan Africa

Given the dual role played by the Government as resource owner and tax collector in many sub - Saharan economies, it is important to separate"resource factor payments"from taxes through the use of different instruments. The instruments to be considered are: (1) a factor payment system that includes"ad rem"or"ad valorem"royalties. Production sharing, resource rent schemes, and fixed fees could also be used, but some form of unit payment is necessary and justified, because natural resources in the ground are inputs into the production process; (2) a cash flow and withholding tax system initially for the mineral sectors and eventually for other sectors of the economy. The cash flow tax would capture a share of the"economic rent"from each sector and be neutral across sectors; and (3) a depletion account to preserve the nations capital stock. Natural resources are part of an economy's capital stock, which will fall unless"replacement investment"is made as the resource is depleted.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Health Economics&Finance