Consumer Shopping Costs as a Cause of Slotting Fees: A Rent-Shifting Mechanism

Analyzing a sequential bargaining framework with one retailer and two suppliers of substitutable goods, we show that slotting fees may emerge as a result of a rent-shifting mechanism when consumer shopping costs are taken into account. If consumers economize on their shopping costs by bundling their purchases, their buying decision depends rather on the price for the whole shopping basket than on individual product prices. This induces complementarities between the goods offered at a retail outlet. If the complementarity effect resulting from shopping costs dominates the original substitution effect, the wholesale price negotiated with the first supplier is upward distorted in order to shift rent from the second supplier. As long as the first supplier has only little bargaining power, she compensates the retailer for the upward distorted wholesale price by paying a slotting fee. We also show that banning slotting fees causes per- unit price to fall and welfare to increase

Incoherent magnetization rotation observed in subnanosecond time-resolving x-ray photoemission electron microscopy

We present recent results of time-resolved x-ray photoemission electron microscopy on permalloy microstructures. The stroboscopic experiments feature a time-resolution of Deltatauless than or equal to130 ps. We observe a strong influence of incoherent magnetization rotation processes, leading to a significant transient stray-field formation at the edges of the microstructure. (C) American Institute of Physics

Study of mechanical spheroidization of powders obtained from waste metal shavings

This paper covers the search for a new method for generating metal powders for additive manufacturing. Raw materials for 3D printing are subject to certain requirements regarding the spherical shape of the powder particles, which are not easily met. The powder preparation methods used in the powder metallurgy may not be directly used for 3D printing without additional energy consumption for the spheroidization operation. More high-tech principles of melt dispersion shall be used for the spheroidization (atomization) of powder particles. Metal waste grinding in ball or vibrating mills generally yields plate-like particles, also requiring the use of energy-intensive atomization technologies. However, an analysis of related foreign research provided an alternative that is to use two-stage grinding to obtain spherical metal powder particles. Continued research in mechanical spheroidization enables the simultaneous manufacture and grinding of the required spherical particles while maintaining practically the same energy consumption that had been previously required for the grinding process. In order to form a research program and establish the optimal grinding size in terms of energy consumption and the dependence between the ball diameter and the grinding and spheroidization results for metal particles, respective preliminary experiments were carried out. The results of these experiments were then used to formulate the conclusions required to develop a method for establishing the optimal grinding ball charge level and composition. The study was carried out under the grant issued by the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 20-79-10125).</jats:p