Joint Optimization Decision of Online Retailers’ Pricing and Live-Streaming Effort in the Postepidemic Era

The isolation requirements of the coronavirus epidemic and the intuitive display advantages of live-streaming have led to an increasing number of retailers shifting to social live-streaming platforms and e-commerce live-streaming platforms to promote and sell their products in real time. However, the provision of live-streaming services will also incur high live-streaming effort costs. In this paper, we develop two decision models for retailers to sell goods through a single online shop and both online shop and live-streaming room; we also present the optimal decisions of pricing and live-streaming efforts. Furthermore, we identify the profitability conditions for retailers to determine when to provide live-streaming services. In addition, we examine the impact of the provision of live-streaming services on the optimal price and live-streaming effort. We obtain three findings. First, there is a unique optimal decision on the price and live-streaming effort under certain conditions. Second, when the effect coefficient of the live-streaming room reaches a certain threshold, there are enough customers who enter the live-streaming room to watch and buy and it is profitable for retailers to provide live-streaming service. Finally, the optimal price and live-streaming effort increase with the increase in average return loss, the effect coefficient of live-streaming effort, and the extra return rate and decrease with the increase in the proportion of customers who choose to buy in the online shop and the price discount coefficient in the live-streaming room.

Can a paid model for peer review be sustainable when the author can decide whether to pay or not?

Given how hard it is to recruit good reviewers who are aligned with authors in their functions, journal editors could consider the use of better incentives, such as paying reviewers for their time. In order to facilitate a speedy turn-around when a rapid decision is required, the peer-reviewed journal can also offer a review model in which selected peer reviewers are compensated to deliver high-quality and timely peer-review reports. In this paper, we consider a peer-reviewed journal in which the manuscript’s evaluation consists of a necessary peer review component and an optional speedy peer review component. We model and study that journal under two different scenarios to be compared: a paid peer-reviewing scenario that is considered as the benchmark; and a hybrid peer-review scenario where the manuscript’s author can decide whether to pay or not. In the benchmark scenario of paid peer-reviewing, the scholarly journal expects all authors to pay for the peer review and charges separately for the necessary and the optional speedy peer-review components. Alternatively, in a hybrid peer-review scenario, the peer-reviewed journal gives the option to the authors to not pay for the necessary peer review if they are not able to pay. This will determine an altruistic amplification of pay utility. However, the no-pay authors cannot avail of the optional speedy peer review, which determines a restriction-induced no-pay utility reduction. In this paper, we find that under the hybrid setting of compensated peer review where the author can decide whether to pay or not, the optimal price and review quality of the optional speedy peer review are always higher than under the benchmark scenario of paid peer-reviewing, due to the altruistic amplification of pay utility. Our results show that when the advantage of adopting the hybrid mode of compensated peer review is higher due to the higher difference between the altruistic author utility amplification and the restriction-induced no-pay utility reduction, the journal can increase its profitability by increasing the price for the necessary peer review above that in the benchmark scenario of paid peer review. A key insight from our results is the journal’s capability to increase the number of paying authors by giving the option to the authors to not pay for the necessary peer review if they are not able to pay.

The Impact of Socio-Economic Inertia and Restrictions on Net-Negative Emissions on Cost-Effective Carbon Price Pathways

Many countries have indicated to plan or consider the use of carbon pricing. Model-based scenarios are used to inform policymakers about emissions pathways and cost-effective carbon prices. Many of these scenarios are based on the Hotelling rule, assuming that a carbon price path increasing with the interest rate leads to a cost-effective strategy. We test the robustness of this rule by using experiments with plausible assumptions for learning by doing, inertia in reducing emissions, and restrictions on net-negative emissions. Analytically, we show that if mitigation technologies become cheaper if their capacities are increased, Hotelling does not always apply anymore. Moreover, the initial carbon price is heavily influenced by restrictions on net-negative emissions and the pathway by both restrictions on net-negative emissions and socio-economic inertia. This means that Hotelling pathways are not necessarily optimal: in fact, combining learning by doing and the above restrictions leads to initial carbon prices that are more than twice as high as a Hotelling pathway and thus to much earlier emission reductions. The optimal price path also increases less strongly and may even decline later in the century, leading to higher initial abatement costs but much lower long-term costs.

Go Green and Recycle: Analyzing the Usage of Plastic Bags for Shopping in China

The extensive usage of plastic bags has caused detrimental environmental damage, and an influx of research efforts have been undertaken to reduce people’s usage of plastic bags. However, studies regarding people’s reuse of plastic bags are still scarce. Therefore, this study is motivated to bridge this research gap by examining the determinants of old plastic bag usage and consumers’ maximum willingness to pay price for plastic carrier bags via a semi-structured online survey on a random sample of 777 Chinese consumers. Descriptive summary, KW test, and logistic regression were used to identify potential determinants and their influence on consumers’ usage of old plastic bags. The findings indicate that consumers’ age, altruistic values, and their perceived plastic ban effectiveness are positively associated with the usage of old plastic bags. Specifically, the elder and altruistic consumers who are positive for plastic ban effectiveness are more likely to reuse old plastic bags. Furthermore, when plastic carrier bags are priced at RMB 2.0, 81.2% of the surveyed consumers say they will stop buying them. Based on the pricing setting experience from the Irish plastic bag policy, we suggest that the optimal price of plastic carrier bags is RMB 12.0, which is also six times of the consumer’s maximum willingness to pay price.

The Dual-Channel Retailer’s Channel Synergy Strategy Decision

The main research question asked in this paper is whether and when a dual-channel retailer (retailer in short) should adopt the “buy online and pick up in store” (BOPS) strategy. To answer this question, we first derive the optimal price decision using the non-BOPS and BOPS strategies. Subsequently, we compare the performance of retailers under non-BOPS and BOPS scenarios. Our main findings are that under the monopoly scenario, retailers may not always benefit from the BOPS strategy. Retailers will benefit only if the offline operational costs are low and the degree of customer acceptance of the online channel is high. However, the BOPS strategy cannot improve dual-channel retailers’ market share. Furthermore, under a Stackelberg game scenario with e-retailers as leaders, when the value of a product is medium and the transaction costs of the offline channel are high, retailers can use the BOPS strategy to enhance their market share. If the degree of customer acceptance of the online channel is also high, retailers can further improve their profits by using the BOPS strategy. Overall, these findings not only provide decision support for retailers, but also enrich the theories on dual-channel retailing in operations management.

Distribution of creative works protected by copyright

This article addresses possible structural alternatives for the dissemination of the results of intellectual activity (RIA), which reflect setting of optimal price and level of technical protection. The paper argues that digital piracy is not always a negative factor for the author or copyright owner but may be a signal indicating an inefficiently of RIA distributing method. The developed model demonstrates the choice of RIA distribution strategy depending on various factors: author's popularity, the difference in quality between the original RIA and pirated copy, legal protection level. The findings regarding the possibilities of combining legal and technical protection, consumer behavior and the positive effects of digital piracy will help the regulator to apply more effective measures. The article is written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research program.

Quantum Game of Dual-channel Supply Chain under Free-riding Behavior

Based on the perspective of the quantum game, this paper explores when the online direct sales channel takes the free-riding behavior after the retail channel provides high-quality experience and services and how the dual-channel supply chain establishes a commodity pricing strategy. The retailer’s selling price follows a decreasing function of the free-riding behavior coefficient. while the online direct selling price does an increasing function of the free-riding behavior coefficient. Under centralized decision-making, there is no quantum entanglement, so the quantum game solution is consistent with the classical game solution. Under decentralized decision-making, the optimal price and profit of the quantum game are higher than those of the classical game when the quantum entanglement degree is greater than zero. When the quantum entanglement tends to be infinite, the optimal price of the quantum game finally remains in convergence. The quantum game theory is a more optimal decision-making method than the classical game theory.

Modeling interaction between distribution company and networked microgrids in optimal operation of active distribution network

In this paper, the interaction between energy sellers and buyers in utilizing active distribution networks is modeled with considering two networked and non-networked modes of microgrids (MGs). A retail electricity market is modeled as a bi-level problem. Accordingly, the Distribution Company (DISCO) in the upper level in order to maximize the profit offers an optimal price to MGs. While in the lower level, the MGs to compare the offered prices by DISCO with the prices of MGs generation sources for minimizing the total costs decided to whether to buy from the DISCO or not. As the first contribution of the paper is to consider the networked operation of the MGs under a unique beneficiary of MGs (BMG). As the second contribution, two very important indices reserve and self-adequacy are considered, which are necessary in the problems related to MGs. In this paper, the impact of considering and disregarding two important reserve and self-adequacy indices of MGs on the profit of the DISCO in two different scenarios is investigated. In each scenario, the impact of considering two modes networked and non-networked of MGs on the profit of DISCO is investigated. Simulation results show the efficiency the presented model.