STRATEGIC INTERACTIONS AND NEGATIVE OIL PRICES

This paper argues on theoretical grounds that the negative oil prices event on April 20, 2020, was mainly due to the strategic interactions among some active traders on both sides of the futures contract. We present a three-player game of futures trading in which a continuum range of negative price can be supported as (strong) Nash equilibrium, yet none of those constitutes an [Formula: see text]-equilibrium originally developed by Ma (2009). We further propose the notion of coalition-with-side-payment as a solution concept for the environment where strategic interactions and transfer payments among players are allowed. Our model captures the mechanism underlying futures price manipulation, and its predictions largely agree with the observations on that day, which are beyond the scope of demand–supply and physical delivery narratives.

Information Sharing in Oligopoly: Sharing Groups and Core-Periphery Architectures

The trade-off between the costs and benefits of disclosing a firm’s private information has been the object of a vast literature. The absence of incentives to share information on a common market demand prior to competition has been advocated to interpret information sharing as evidence of collusion. Recent contributions have looked at bilateral information sharing, showing that information sharing is consistent with pairwise stability, This paper studies the networked pattern of bilateral information sharing on market demand, focusing on the role of heterogeneous information (firms’ signals have different variances). We show that while pairwise stability predicts that i.i.d. signals are always shared in groups with a symmetric internal structure (both with and without side-payment and linking costs), heterogeneous signals are shared in asymmetric core-periphery architectures, in which “core” firms have more valuable information than periphery firms.

Driver Surge Pricing

Ride-hailing marketplaces like Uber and Lyft use dynamic pricing, often called surge, to balance the supply of available drivers with the demand for rides. We study driver-side payment mechanisms for such marketplaces, presenting the theoretical foundation that has informed the design of Uber’s new additive driver surge mechanism. We present a dynamic stochastic model to capture the impact of surge pricing on driver earnings and their strategies to maximize such earnings. In this setting, some time periods (surge) are more valuable than others (nonsurge), and therefore trips of different time lengths vary in the induced driver opportunity cost. First, we show that multiplicative surge, historically the standard on ride-hailing platforms, is not incentive compatible in a dynamic setting. We then propose a structured, incentive-compatible pricing mechanism. This closed-form mechanism has a simple form and is well approximated by Uber’s new additive surge mechanism. Finally, through both numerical analysis and real data from a ride-hailing marketplace, we show that additive surge is more incentive compatible in practice than is multiplicative surge. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, revenue management and market analytics.

Rebel Retirement in the South through Harmonic Exit Networks

This chapter shows how grassroots civic associations that grew in the gray zone of state-insurgency interface in the South became sites of incubation of informal exit networks, which facilitate safe passage of Maoists from insurgency to democracy in Telangana. Based on the rebels’ account of the protracted process of retirement, this chapter also highlights, both empirically and theoretically, the various actors and processes in rebel retirement, including the operation of the two mechanisms of trust and side payment that help resolve the problem of credible commitment locally. This chapter shows that the militant mass mobilization by the Maoists in the South created conditions for vibrant associational life in the gray zones of the South, which allowed various actors and processes of rebel retirement to function and proliferate.

Decision and coordination of a low-carbon supply chain considering environmental tax policy on consumers

Purpose This paper aims to explore how upstream supply chain companies will control the carbon emissions and price decisions of products when the government implements environmental tax policy on consumers. It provides some suggestions to control carbon emissions for the government and manufacturers. Design/methodology/approach This study establishes two-echelon Stackelberg game models with and without the implementation of environmental tax policy on consumers in a centralized scenario and a decentralized scenario. Through the comparative analysis of the four models, the optimal emission abatement and pricing strategies are obtained. Findings This paper concludes that implementing environmental tax policy on consumers within the market’s acceptable range is more beneficial to the retailer and the environment, as well as the overall social welfare, except for the manufacturer. Moreover, consumer’s low-carbon preference always has a broader impact on carbon abatement and corporate profits than environmental tax coefficient. Finally, the side-payment self-executing contract can effectively ensure that the supply chain members make rational decisions spontaneously while achieving a win-win solution of centralized scenario. Originality/value This paper first considers how the government’s environmental tax policy on consumers will affect the decision-making of supply chain companies, and proposes an improved side-payment self-enforcing contract to maximize environmental and economic benefits of centralized scenario. In addition, it provides a reference for the government to adopt both the carbon cap policy and the environmental tax policy.