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Collusion or Not: The optimal choice of competing retailers in a closed-loop supply chain

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  • Wang, Qifei
  • Hong, Xianpei
  • Gong, Yeming (Yale)
  • Chen, Wanying (Amanda)

Abstract

While previous studies overlook the collusive behavior of retailers under bidirectional competition, we study a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of one manufacturer and two competing retailers whose competition exists in the forward and reverse channels. Considering the retailers' potential collusive behavior and the upstream manufacturer's interactive decisions, we build three two-tier game models: Stackelberg-collusion model, Stackelberg-Nash model, and Stackelberg-Stackelberg model. We first obtain the equilibrium decisions of the manufacturer and the retailers in the three models. Furthermore, we investigate whether collusion is beneficial to the two retailers. We find that the retailers' collusion always brings remarkable profit improvement to them as a whole, while the smaller retailers may suffer severe profit loss. A profit-sharing contract is, therefore, designed to guarantee that each retailer can gain more profit by collusion. We also compare the environmental benefit and social welfare among the three models and find that collusion may do harm to the environment or social welfare compared with other models.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Qifei & Hong, Xianpei & Gong, Yeming (Yale) & Chen, Wanying (Amanda), 2020. "Collusion or Not: The optimal choice of competing retailers in a closed-loop supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:225:y:2020:i:c:s0925527319304219
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.107580
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    3. Saglam, Ismail, 2023. "Must Pollution Abatement Harm the Supplier in a Multi-Echelon Supply Chain?," MPRA Paper 118834, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    7. Kong, Junjun & Chua, Geoffrey A. & Yang, Feng, 2023. "Firms’ cooperation on recycling investments in a three-echelon reverse supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    8. Matsui, Kenji, 2023. "Dual-recycling channel reverse supply chain design of recycling platforms under acquisition price competition," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
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    10. Saglam, Ismail, 2023. "The Optimal Antitrust Policies for Vertical Price Restraints in a Non-Green Supply Chain," MPRA Paper 117587, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Hong, Xianpei & Cao, Xinlu & Gong, Yeming & Chen, Wanying, 2021. "Quality information acquisition and disclosure with green manufacturing in a closed-loop supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
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