Green Credit Financing Equilibrium under Government Subsidy and Supply Uncertainty

In this paper, we study the green credit financing equilibrium in a green supply chain (GSC) with government subsidy and supply uncertainty. The GSC system is composed of one manufacturer, two retailers, one bank, and the government. The manufacturer is subject to both supply uncertainty and limited capital. The manufacturer invests in the R&D of green products and borrows loans from the bank. The government subsidizes banks to encourage banks to provide loans to manufacturers with lower interest rates, which is termed “green credit financing”. The two retailers decide their order quantities with horizontal competition or horizontal cooperation. We first developed a Stackelberg model to investigate the green credit financing equilibriums (i.e., the interest rate of the bank, the manufacturer’s product green degree and wholesale price, and the retailers’ order quantity) under horizontal competition and horizontal cooperation, respectively. Subsequently, we analyzed how the subsidy interest rate, supply uncertainty, and supply correlation affect financing decisions regarding equilibrium green credit. We found that a high subsidy interest rate leads to a low interest rate of bank and the manufacturer can set a high level of green product and high wholesale price, while the retailers can set a high order quantity. Finally, we compared the green credit financing equilibriums under horizontal competition with those under horizontal cooperation using numerical and analytical methods. We found that, in general, the optimal decisions and profits of bank and SC members, consumer surplus, and social welfare under horizontal competition are higher than those under horizontal cooperation. The findings in this research could provide valuable insights for the management of capital-constrained GSCs with government subsidies and supply uncertainty in a competing market.

15. Horizontal agreements (3): cooperation agreements

This chapter is concerned with horizontal cooperation agreements which the competition authorities in the EU and the UK may be prepared to countenance. There may be circumstances in which competitors cooperate with one another in a way that delivers economic benefits, not just for themselves, but for consumer welfare as well. After a discussion of joint ventures, the chapter discusses the application of Article 101 to horizontal cooperation agreements. It refers, in particular, to the European Commission’s Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements and discusses, in turn, information exchange, research and development agreements, production agreements, purchasing agreements, commercialisation agreements, standardisation agreements, sustainability agreements and other cases of permissible horizontal cooperation. It concludes with a brief look at the treatment of horizontal cooperation agreements under UK competition law.

8. Horizontal and vertical agreements

‘Horizontal and vertical agreements’ explores the application of US and EU competition laws to horizontal and vertical agreements. Horizontal collaborations and agreements take place between companies at the same level of manufacturing, distribution, or retail. A horizontal cooperation agreement may include restrictions on companies’ freedom to compete on their operation, or may include provisions which facilitate exchange of sensitive information. It is worth considering information exchange agreements. Meanwhile, vertical agreements are agreements between companies operating at different levels of the production or distribution chain. Exclusive distribution agreements and most-favoured-nation clauses (MFN) illustrate the possible anti-competitive effects of vertical agreements.

Optimization of competitive supply chains with retailers’ horizontal cooperation and consumers’ green preference

With the wider recognition of the concept of environmental protection and sustainable development, more and more manufacturers have begun to implement green manufacturing strategies. However, green development is a gradual process, and the coexistence of ordinary and green products is common. This paper examines the competition between ordinary products and green ones based on supply chains, and discusses the impact of retailers’ horizontal cooperation on pricing, greenness, market demand, profit, and other related decisions and results. Model solutions and numerical experiments have shown that consumers’ green preference (CGP) has a positive impact on the results of green products and negative effects on those of ordinary ones; however, the impact of competition intensity (CI) is more complex, and the trend tends to change if it exceeds a certain critical value. In general, cooperation encourages retailers to raise prices and make manufacturers lower wholesale prices, but the retail and wholesale prices of green products are always higher than the corresponding prices of ordinary ones. Market demand can be reduced due to cooperation, but it is conducive to strengthening green products’ greenness. However, if CI exceeds a certain threshold, the greenness will be weakened by cooperation. Both retailers can benefit from cooperation easily and they always reach a win-win situation, but manufacturers suffer badly as a result. Nevertheless, when CI is weak, cooperation will bring a greater profit improvement to the whole chain of ordinary products; in this case, if a retailer is willing to compensate for a manufacturer’s profit loss and help it benefit from cooperation, the manufacturer will encourage the retailer to cooperate horizontally with the green retailer, but the green chain will be seriously damaged. When CI is strong, the greenness of green products is not obvious enough, and cooperation can bring some chances to achieve a win-win situation for two chains; if the green retailer can obtain a larger share from cooperation under this scenario, it can also enable its manufacturer to obtain compensation and change the profit increment from negative to positive. From an overall perspective, when CI is very weak or very strong, horizontal cooperation is conducive to improving the profit of the entire supply chain competition system, but when CI is relatively flat, independent operation for each chain is more advantageous; if the competition status is stable and unchanged, independent competition will be superior to horizontal cooperation.

Implementing Horizontal Cooperation in Public Transport and Parcel Deliveries: The Cooperative Share-A-Ride Problem

The static share-a-ride problem (SARP) consists of handling people and parcels in an integrated way through the same vehicle, which provides a shared trip between an origin and a destination, in response to requests received in advance. When multiple providers compete on the same market (for instance, within the same city or region), horizontal cooperation can be an efficient strategy to consolidate all requests and to optimize the total payoff. This situation gives rise to the cooperative SARP (coop-SARP). In this problem, multiple depots and heterogeneous vehicles must be considered and different cooperation levels may be agreed upon by service providers. In this paper, we propose a new mathematical programming formulation for cooperative SARP along with theoretical bounds. Moreover, through numerical experiments and ad hoc statistics, we analyze the benefits of different levels of horizontal cooperation between service providers. The results show that cooperation leads to reduced travel times and to improved vehicle occupancy rates, service levels, and profits, which make such a cooperative system even more appealing for service providers.

International Cooperation for the Repression of Core Crimes

The burden of ensuring the repression of crimes that shock the conscience of mankind lies primarily with States. National prosecution of core crimes, however, relies heavily on inter-State cooperation. The obligation to cooperate in order to bring to justice the authors of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity may well be considered as a corollary of the erga omnes obligation to investigate and punish these crimes. The international instruments devoted to the repression of core crimes, however, fail to provide a sufficient regulatory framework for horizontal cooperation in this field, leaving it to States to make use of the tools established under domestic law, or provided by other existing treaties. The UNTOC and its Supplementing Protocols may prove useful in this framework. Even though these instruments were not expressly designed to tackle core crimes, some of the offences covered by them may indeed qualify as crimes against humanity or war crimes, if assisted by the ‘contextual element’ which characterizes the latter crimes. The UNTOC, moreover, can be used to further the prosecution of criminal groups that aid the commission of core crimes for profit.

Urban e-Grocery Distribution Design in Pamplona (Spain) Applying an Agent-Based Simulation Model with Horizontal Cooperation Scenarios

E-commerce has boosted in the last decades because of the achievements of the information and telecommunications technology along with the changes in the society life-style. More recently, the groceries online purchase (or e-grocery), has also prevailed as a way of making the weekly shopping, particularly, the one including fresh vegetables and fruit. Furthermore, this type of virtual shopping in supermarkets is gaining importance as the most efficient delivery system in cost and time. Thus, we have evaluated in this study the influence of the cooperation-based policies on costs and service quality among different supermarkets in Pamplona, Spain. Concerning methodology, first of all, we carried out a survey in Pamplona having the purpose of modelling the demand patterns about e-grocery. Second, we have developed an agent-based simulation model for generating scenarios in non-cooperative, limited cooperation, and full cooperation settings, considering the real data obtained from the survey analysis. At this manner, Vehicle Routing Problems (VRP) and Multi Depot VRPs (MDVRP) are dynamically generated and solved within the simulation framework using a biased-randomization algorithm. Finally, the results show significant reductions in distance driven and lead times when employing horizontal cooperation in e-grocery distribution.