Search Results (9)

The imbalance between supply and demand for slot resources and empty containers has led to resource waste and excessive operating costs for liner companies. Moreover, intense competition among ports has made both container ship slots and port equipment resource allocation inefficient. To address these challenges, this paper aims to solve the collaborative optimization problem of slot allocation and empty container repositioning within port clusters concerning inventory control. A cooperative possession strategy and a hybrid (T, s) inventory control policy are incorporated in this paper. A novel mixed-integer programming model is proposed, enabling us to simultaneously track slot allocation, empty container repositioning, empty container leasing, and slot renting. To solve the model, a new branch-and-bound algorithm based on Lagrangian relaxation and the ascendancy principle (BBLRAP) is developed. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm. The results show that the new collaborative optimization method, incorporating the cooperative possession strategy and (T, s) inventory policy, can increase liner company revenues by expanding market share, reducing costs, and improving the utilization of slot resources, ultimately achieving a win–win outcome for both liner companies and their partners. Compared to state-of-the-art studies, the following paper makes new contributions to proposing a cooperative possession strategy within port clusters for the first time. This paper ensures that liner companies and partners achieve a win–win situation in the cooperative game, expanding market shares and improving customer satisfaction. Full article

Based on data from A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen between 2007 and 2020, this study categorizes enterprises into decision-making and execution levels. We found that a high degree of digital transformation at the decision-making level enhances enterprise performance, while excessive transformation at the execution level diminishes performance. We tested the influence of the digital transformation degree of the decision-making layer and the executive layer on enterprise performance by constructing an econometric model. The mechanism behind the results was tested, and the influence mechanism between digital transformation and enterprise performance was explored from the perspective of TOE theory. Mechanism analysis showed that digital transformation impacts performance by increasing R&D investment, driving revenue growth, and enabling the efficient use of government subsidies. Managing decision-level expenses also strengthens performance and supports digital transformation. This research offers fresh insights into how technology drives digital transformation in a changing external environment, guiding management at different hierarchical levels in enterprises. Full article

The cheap price of carbon sink trading in certification emission reduction (CER) makes it more popular than the carbon emission allowance (CEA); trading in carbon-neutral, enterprises are more inclined to purchase carbon sinks to achieve their own carbon neutrality goals and promote decarbonization of the whole chain. Companies urgently need to figure out how to achieve carbon neutrality with government rewards and punishments. Moreover, as an important factor affecting the effectiveness of supply chain, it is particularly important to study how to coordinate fairness concerns of such objects. Therefore, a centralized and two-stage Stackelberg game model of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) of one manufacturer and one retailer is constructed, and the cost-sharing contract, revenue-sharing contract, and cost–revenue-sharing contract are used to coordinate it, taking into account the fairness concerns of downstream enterprises while pursuing carbon neutrality, ensuring the overall benefits of the supply chain, and considering the impact of government subsidies and rewards and punishments on the carbon neutrality of the supply chain. Research shows that (1) compared with the other two contracts, the cost–revenue-sharing contract performs better and can effectively achieve the Pareto optimum; (2) the cost-sharing contract performs better in accomplishing the carbon neutrality of the CLSC; (3) excessively high carbon sink prices are not only detrimental to enterprise efficiency, but also to the realization of carbon neutrality goal; and (4) higher supply chain utility is pursued by enterprises when the unit reward and punishment are not great enough; otherwise, carbon neutrality is pursued. The research results can not only provide decision support for the product pricing, carbon sink reserve and contract design of CLSC enterprises under the goal of carbon neutrality, but can also provide a reference for the setting of government subsidies and rewards and punishment. Full article

With the rapid development of the sharing economy, more and more platform operators apply the sharing concept in manufacturing, which increases the efficiency of assets utilization. Considering the apparel industry, clothing enterprises or manufacturers may share their excess orders between each other via a manufacturing cloud platform. Under the traditional production mode, manufacturers focus on processing their individual orders. There may be a coexistence of insufficient and surplus production capabilities. Some manufacturers cannot meet their customer demands due to limited capabilities and some orders have to be rejected, while some other manufacturers may have excess capacities with insufficient demands. It results in loss of revenue, and it is not conducive to maintaining a good customer relationship. In this paper, we consider a shared system with multiple manufacturers that produce homogeneous products, and the manufacturers in the shared system can share customer orders with each other. Once any manufacturer cannot fulfill all of its orders, the unsatisfied ones will be shared with other manufacturers that have surplus capacities with the aim of improving the balance of resource utilization and risk resistance of all manufacturers on the platform. The entropy maximization theory is mainly adopted to facilitate the formulation of the objective function. We apply a Taylor expansion to reformulate the objective function and construct a mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) model. We employ off-the-shelf solvers to solve small-scale problems, and also propose a two-stage constructive heuristic algorithm to solve large-scale problems. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithm. Full article

This article examines the role played by institutions in the post-Soviet transformation of rural areas of Russia and the development of agriculture. It is shown that the main goal of transformations—the transition to market relations—has been achieved. The relevance of the article lies in the analysis of the process of incomplete institutional transfer, unique on a global scale: the transition from full state ownership and state regulation to market relations was replaced by the dominance of large forms of business organization with prevailing governmental control. The article aims to study the impact of institutional reforms on the structure and dynamics of market agents in rural areas of Russia from 1990 to 2020. Institutional, statistical and sociological methods were applied. Materials from 59 expert interviews were used. The informants represented the categories “public” and “business” of three different agricultural territories. Statistical data and official reports of agricultural holdings were analyzed. Changes in the structure of land ownership and other production factors were considered. The historical stages of the institutional dynamics of agriculture are shown. It is proved that the emergence of a class of owners in agriculture was the main result of institutional changes in Russia; the formation of many institutions for the support and development of agriculture and rural areas is also significant. The observed obstacles to the growth of the segment of small and medium-sized businesses are due to the incomplete legitimacy of the ongoing processes, the strong volatility of the regulatory framework and insufficient transparency of state support. In Russia, after 1990, the total area of agricultural land decreased and was consolidated by large owners—Agricultural holdings. By 2020, the estimated share of agricultural holdings in revenue was 31% for crop production, 37% for livestock, and 70% for meat. Experts noted the excessive dependence of market actors on state support and the deepening of social inequality. Full article

In order to achieve growth in fiscal revenue and the regional economy under the Chinese decentralization system, the land resources misallocation (LRM) among different industries was promoted through the differentiated land supply strategy, which has a vital role in carbon emissions. This study theoretically analyzes the overall effect and the effect of the intermediate LRM mechanism on carbon emissions and empirically tests the impact of LRM on carbon emissions based on panel data collected from 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2017 using the environmental Kuznets curve theory. The results show that (1) the local governments have monopolized the primary land market across the nation, leading to resource misallocation among industrial, commercial, and residential land. This inefficient and unsustainable allocation aggravated the release of carbon emissions. (2) The impact of LRM on carbon emissions has varied among different regions. LRM in the eastern and central regions significantly exacerbated carbon emissions. A greater impact on carbon emissions occurred in the eastern region, while the impact was insignificant in the western region. (3) There are two mechanisms through which LRM affects carbon emissions. One is the restraint of upgrading industrial structure, and the other is the restriction of technological innovations. In conclusion, speeding up the reform of the tax sharing system is suggested to reduce the excessive dependence of local governments on land resources. Meanwhile, in order to reduce carbon emissions, the land acquisition and transfer system should be reformed to gradually achieve the market-oriented allocation of land resources, and the benefits coordination mechanism of different land transfer modes should be established. Finally, we propose different carbon emission reduction policies for the heterogeneity of regional economic development. Full article

Many of the environment and natural resources that constitute key “safe operating spaces”, as designated by planetary boundaries, are being exploited by a handful of large firms with considerable market share. In this paper, we discuss how the environment and natural resources that occur within a safe operating space can be treated as an exploitable finite stock. We use an optimal depletion model to show how the extraction of these exhaustible assets can be managed optimally, and allow for adjustment in price paths due to technological innovation and environmental externalities. Given the growing market concentration and monopoly power in the key economic sectors that exploit the environment and resources that constitute many safe operating spaces, we then explore how monopoly conditions can alter the extraction and price path of the environmental assets over time compared to that under competitive market conditions. We show that the monopoly may be compatible with more sustainable use, by extending the life of the exploitable, depletable stock, at the expense of firms capturing excessive resource rents from exploitation. This tradeoff means that any policies implemented to tax the excessive monopoly rents need to be designed without compromising the sustainable use of the environment. The tax revenue raised can be channeled into protecting or regenerating natural assets that are essential for global environmental sustainability. If investment in regeneration efforts is sufficiently substantial, or if the wider social and environmental values associated with the exhaustible assets are taken into account, then the safe operating space may be conserved indefinitely. Such policy challenges will become increasingly important as dominant firms exert market power over the planet’s remaining environment and resources that constitute key “safe operating spaces”, as designated by planetary boundaries. Full article

The Minimum Revenue Guarantee (MRG) was designed to mitigate the financial risk of private investors that participate in the transportation project as concessionaire under a public-private partnership (PPP) program. The MRG can pose a significant financial burden to governments especially when the contract revenue is set considerably higher than the actual revenue. This may encourage the concessionaire to inflate the traffic forecast to make the project look as if it will be profitable. In order to mitigate this problem, extra conditions for exercising the MRG can be considered. This study examines how these exercise conditions change the economic value of the MRG using the case study based on the urban railway project in the Republic of Korea. By utilizing the real options analysis, the study identified that the exercise conditions have worked to curtail the expected payment from the government, eventually leading to a reduction in the concessionaire’s expectation of revenue. The value of MRG was at a far lower level compared to the concessionaire’s investment because of the low probability of exercising the MRG when the exercise conditions apply. The findings are expected to contribute to the sustainability of the PPP program by recognizing and quantifying liabilities and risks embedded in the concession agreement in advance. Full article

In order to improve system performance such as throughput, heterogeneous network (HetNet) has become an effective solution in Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LET-A). However, co-channel interference leads to degradation of the HetNet throughput, because femtocells are always arranged to share the spectrum with the macro base station. In this paper, in view of the serious cross-layer interference in double layer HetNet, the Stackelberg game model is adopted to analyze the resource allocation methods of the network. Unlike the traditional system models only focusing on macro base station performance improvement, we take into account the overall system performance and build a revenue function with convexity. System utility functions are defined as the average throughput, which does not adopt frequency spectrum trading method, so as to avoid excessive signaling overhead. Due to the value scope of continuous Nash equilibrium of the built game model, the gradient iterative algorithm is introduced to reduce the computational complexity. As for the solution of Nash equilibrium, one kind of gradient iterative algorithm is proposed, which is able to intelligently choose adjustment factors. The Nash equilibrium can be quickly solved; meanwhile, the step of presetting adjustment factors is avoided according to network parameters in traditional linear iterative model. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm enhances the overall performance of the system. Full article