Impact of demand forecast information sharing on the decision of a green supply chain with government subsidy

This paper investigates a green supply chain (GSC) consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer who possesses private demand forecast information. To promote green consumption, the government may provide subsidies to consumers. Within a dynamic game where the manufacturer serves as the leader and the retailer acts as the follower, three cases are examined: centralized decision, decentralized decision with and without demand forecast information sharing between the retailer and the manufacturer. We mainly examine the value of information sharing on the decisions of a GSC in the context of government subsidies for consumers. We find that: (i) demand forecast information sharing benefits the manufacturer but damages the retailer; (ii) if the predicted value is higher than the determinate part of the demand, the manufacturer is willing to choose a higher green degree of products in the case with information sharing compared with that without information sharing; otherwise, the manufacturer is willing to choose a lower green degree of products; (iii) a two-part tariff contract is appropriate to coordinate the GSC and it is effective in increasing the green degree of products; (iv) information sharing benefits the GSC if the green production efficiency is high enough; (v) the ex-ante social welfare always increases with information accuracy. Finally, numerical analyses are conducted to verify the above findings.