scholarly journals Supply Chains, the Informal Economy, and the Worst Forms of Child Labour

Author(s):  
Jody Aked

As a cohort of people, ‘children in work’ have become critical to the everyday functioning of diverse supply chain systems. This Working Paper considers diverse commodity chains (leather, waste, recycling and sex) to explore the business realities that generate child labour in its worst forms. A review of the literature finds that occurrence of the worst forms of child labour (WFCL) in supply chain systems is contingent on the organising logics and strategies adopted by actors in both the formal and informal economies. Piecing together the available evidence, the paper hypothesises that a supply chain system is sensitive to the use of WFCL when downward pressure to take on business risk cannot be matched by the economic resilience to absorb that risk. Emergencies and persistent stressors may increase risk and reduce resilience, shifting norms and behaviour. There is a need for further work to learn from business owners and workers in the informal economy.

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucila Berniell

AbstractInformality is pervasive in many developing countries and it can affect occupational and educational decisions. Cross-country data shows that the rate of entrepreneurship as well as the gap between the skill premium for entrepreneurs and for workers increase with the size of the informal economy. Also, in countries with larger informal sectors the fraction of high-skilled individuals that choose to be entrepreneurs is larger. To explain these facts, I develop a model economy with human capital investments, occupational choice and an informal sector, in which the investment in human capital improves the efficiency of labor as well as managerial skills, and the technology to produce goods exhibits capital-skill complementarity. Model predictions can account for cross-country evidence and also shed light on the mechanisms at work when the level of informality in the economy increases. In particular, a higher level of informality discourages human capital investments for workers while it incentivizes these investments for the case of some managers, mostly informal but talented.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1115
Author(s):  
Shufan Zhu ◽  
Kefan Xie ◽  
Ping Gui

Incorporating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mask supply chain into our framework and taking mask output as a state variable, our study introduces the differential game to study the long-term dynamic cooperation of a two-echelon supply chain composed of the supplier and the manufacturer under government subsidies. The study elaborates that government subsidies can provide more effective incentives for supply chain members to cooperate in the production of masks compared with the situation of no government subsidies. A relatively low wholesale price can effectively increase the profits of supply chain members and the supply chain system. The joint contract of two-way cost-sharing contract and transfer payment contract can promote production technology investment efforts of the supply chain members, the optimum trajectory of mask production, and total profit to reach the best state as the centralized decision scenario within a certain range. Meanwhile, it is determined that the profits of supply chain members in the joint contract can be Pareto improvement compared with decentralized decision scenario. With the increase of production technology investment cost coefficients and output self-decay rate, mask outputs have shown a downward trend in the joint contract decision model. On the contrary, mask outputs would rise with growing sensitivity of mask output to production technology investment effort and increasing sensitivity of mask demand to mask output.


Author(s):  
Wei Zhou ◽  
Maha Saad Metawea

As is known that, one of the challenges in ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products in China is how to organize plenty of scattered small farmers and integrate them into the modern agricultural products supply chain system. In this paper, in order to promote the tight integration of agricultural products supply chain, based on multi-agent system, a computer simulation model of agricultural products supply chain is proposed. Through a series of simulation experiments, the evolution of the organizational structure of the agricultural products supply chain, its impact on the quality and safety of agricultural products under different government regulations are explored and discussed in detail. It follows from these simulation results that the more long-term-contract farmers and sellers, the more conducive to the improvement of the quality and safety of agricultural products, and the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are also provided.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1740
Author(s):  
Cheng Che ◽  
Xiaoguang Zhang ◽  
Yi Chen ◽  
Liangyan Zhao ◽  
Zhihong Zhang

By establishing a two-level symbiotic supply chain system consisting of one supplier and one manufacturer, we use Stackelberg method to analyze the optimal price and revenue model of supplier and manufacturer in the symbiotic supply chain under two power structures in which the supplier and manufacturer are dominant respectively, and analyze the influence of the degree of symbiosis and power structure on the model. Through comparative analysis, we find that: There is a relationship between the income level and the degree of symbiosis in the symbiotic supply chain. The change of power structure will affect the relative benefits of suppliers and manufacturers in the symbiotic supply chain. The manufacturer’s expected unit product revenue will affect the supply chain revenue when the manufacturer is dominant. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of relevant parameters is carried out through an example analysis, and the validity of the conclusion is verified. This paper has a guiding significance for the behavior of enterprises in the cogeneration supply chain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Zhang ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Jingsi Huang

Supply chain coordination models are developed in a two-echelon supply chain with double sided disruptions. In a supply chain system, the supplier may suffer from the product cost disruption and the retailer suffers from the demand disruption simultaneously. The purpose of this study is to design proper supply chain contracts, under which the supply chain with double sided disruption can be coordinated. Firstly, the centralized decision-making models are applied to find the optimal price and quantity under three cases as the baseline. The different cases are divided by the different relationship between the product cost disruption and the demand disruption. Secondly, two different types of contracts are introduced to coordinate the whole supply chain. One is all-unit wholesale quantity discount policy (AQDP) contract, and the other one is capacitated linear pricing policy (CLPP) contract. And it is found out that the gap between the demand disruption and the product cost disruption is the key factor to influence the supply chain coordination. Some numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are given to illustrate the models. The AQDP contracts are listed out under different cases to show how to use it under double sided disruptions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 557-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Özbayrak ◽  
Theopisti C. Papadopoulou ◽  
Efstratios Samaras

2014 ◽  
Vol 156 ◽  
pp. 332-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhaba R. Sarker ◽  
Ratkrit Rochanaluk ◽  
Huizhi Yi ◽  
Pius J. Egbelu

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