Search Results (11)

This study proposes a cost-effective and reliable blockchain-based approach for managing small-scale digital asset trading platforms. Instead of developing an independent blockchain, the proposed method constructs a sidechain anchored to established blockchains known for their stability and reliability, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. In this study, we refer to these established blockchains serving as the mainchain for our sidechain as the reference chain. The proposed sidechain, termed the platform chain in this paper, inherits the security and trust of the reference chain, while reducing operational costs and requiring no modifications to it. To enhance efficiency and privacy, the proposed method introduces a dual-sidechain architecture. The platform chain can be constructed either as a private blockchain or a consortium blockchain, depending on the specific operational requirements. In this architecture, only the hash values of transactions are recorded on the platform chain by default, while complete transaction content is disclosed through a dual platform chain under controlled conditions. This enables strong privacy guarantees, alongside auditable transparency when needed. To evaluate the security and feasibility of our approach, we perform a comprehensive threat assessment, addressing critical threats such as operator-level manipulation, invalid or harmful user actions, collusion among system entities, and dishonest behavior by the auditor. Our results confirm that the proposed sidechain framework provides a secure, scalable foundation for digital asset trading platforms, effectively enhancing privacy and ensuring robust protection under various adversarial conditions. Full article

The widespread use of data in e-commerce has facilitated the implementation of different pricing strategies for platforms and merchants. However, the excessive use of algorithms for differential pricing has sparked discussions about fairness and price discrimination, disrupting the platform trading system. To address this challenge, we adopt an evolutionary game approach to analyze the evolutionary strategies of all parties from the perspective of platform CSR. It is based on a special type of e-commerce platform trading in which major merchants have data analytics capabilities. We construct an evolutionary game model considering reputation and punishment, explore the impact of different situations and factors on the system’s evolutionary stability strategy, and conduct its verification via simulation experiments. The results show that long-term reputation is the internal driving force for platforms to fulfill responsibilities. The joint punishment of collusion is the external binding force. Consumer complaints are key to restricting merchants’ integrity operation. Moreover, penalties imposed by e-commerce platforms can help eradicate price discrimination. This study provides a new perspective to solve price discrimination in the digital era. Measures based on reputation and punishment can guide platforms to fulfill other social responsibilities. Full article

In this paper, we aim to investigate the collusive stability in the presence of network externalities among firms with relative performance in the firm’s objective functions. We demonstrate that collusive stability is increasing (decreasing) in the degree of relative performance, product substitutability and network effect when the network effect is sufficiently large (small). A competition agency might need to provide different guidance for anti-competitive regulation in the network industry. Full article

The non-fungible tokens trading of digital content works, as an emerging business model, has rapidly developed while also posing challenges to current copyright protection. The NFT infringement incidents in recent years have exposed many issues, such as lack of government regulation, imperfect copyright protection mechanisms, and illegal profits from service platforms. Considering the collusive behavior during the NFT minting process, this study uses evolutionary game theory to model a game composed of three populations: digital content creators; NFT service platforms; and government regulatory agencies. We derived and analyzed the replication dynamics of the game to determine the evolutionary stability strategy. In addition, combined with numerical simulations, we also analyzed the impact of individual factors on the stability of system evolution. This study identifies that the incentives and fines set by the government must be above a certain threshold in order for game results to develop toward an ideal equilibrium state, and the government can try to improve the efficiency of obtaining and updating market information and set dynamic punishment and reward mechanisms based on this. This study also found that excessive rewards are not conducive to the government fulfilling its own regulatory responsibilities. In this regard, the government can use information technology to reduce the cost of regulation, thereby partially offsetting the costs brought about by incentive mechanisms. In addition, the government can also enhance the governance participation of platforms and creators to improve the robustness of digital copyright protection by strengthening media construction and cultivating public copyright awareness. This study helps to understand the complex relationship between NFT service platforms, digital content creators, and government regulatory authorities and proves the practical meaning of countermeasures and suggestions for improving government digital copyright regulations. Full article

This paper considers the collusive stability of downstream competition in a vertical market with network externalities and cost asymmetry. A dynamic collusion game is constructed, and backward induction is employed to solve the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. We show that larger network externalities lead to less collusive incentive for an inefficient firm, while for an efficient firm, this depends on the efficiency gap. An increase in network externalities will destabilize the downstream collusion when the cost asymmetry is large and network externalities are relatively weak. Full article

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential for fraudulent financial reporting using the fraud hexagon theory factors such as stimulus (financial target, financial stability, and external pressure), capability (change in director), collusion (total board of commissioners who have multiple positions), opportunity (ineffective monitoring), rationalization (auditor switching), and arrogance (frequency of the number of photos of the chief executive officer (CEO) in the annual financial statements) affect fraudulent financial reporting. The sample of this study comprises banking companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2017–2021, with a total sample of 215 and data processing using SPSS 25 software. The results of this study indicate that external pressure and arrogance affect fraudulent financial reporting. However, financial targets, financial stability, ineffective monitoring, auditor switching, change in director, and collusion do not affect fraudulent financial reporting. Therefore, for a company to have a system for preventing the occurrence of embezzlement, the company has to create a system of detection, monitoring, and systems review policies in the field of human resources (HR). Full article

This study aims to detect fraudulent financial reporting using hexagon fraud analysis, including seven factors: financial stability, external pressures, ineffective monitoring, auditor changes, change in director, arrogance, and collusion. The subject of this research is a public company consolidated audit report of state-owned enterprises. The existence of conflicting results, the phenomenon of fraudulent financial reporting, and limited research using the hexagon of fraud theory prompted this research to examine the factors that influence fraudulent financial reporting. The sample was selected using a sampling technique, with the criteria of state-owned enterprises listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2016–2020. The method used is quantitative, and the analytical method used is logistic regression analysis. The sampling technique used was purposeful sampling, so the number of samples was 125. The results of this study indicate that financial stability and external pressures have a positive effect on fraudulent financial reporting. However, ineffective monitoring, auditor changes, change in director, arrogance, and collusion do not affect fraudulent financial reporting. Full article

The trade-off between the costs and benefits of disclosing a firm’s private information has been the object of a vast literature. The absence of incentives to share information on a common market demand prior to competition has been advocated to interpret information sharing as evidence of collusion. Recent contributions have looked at bilateral information sharing, showing that information sharing is consistent with pairwise stability, This paper studies the networked pattern of bilateral information sharing on market demand, focusing on the role of heterogeneous information (firms’ signals have different variances). We show that while pairwise stability predicts that i.i.d. signals are always shared in groups with a symmetric internal structure (both with and without side-payment and linking costs), heterogeneous signals are shared in asymmetric core-periphery architectures, in which “core” firms have more valuable information than periphery firms. Full article

The paper analyzes a two-stage oligopoly game of semi-collusion in production described by a system with a symmetric structure. We examine the local stability of a Nash equilibrium and the presence of bifurcations. We discover that the model is capable of exhibiting extremely complicated dynamic behaviors. Full article

Because of the risks existing in supply chain finance, taking accounts receivable factoring business as the research object, this paper uses the evolutionary game method to analyzes the factors affecting the decision-making of the participants in supply chain finance, constructs an evolutionary game model between small and medium-sized enterprises and financial institutions, and analyzes the mechanism of blockchain to solve the financial risks of the supply chain by comparing the changes of evolutionary stability strategies before and after the introduction of blockchain technology. This paper aims to reduce financing risks by analyzing the mechanism of blockchain technology in supply chain finance. It is found that, firstly, blockchain technology can reduce the credit risk of financial institutions and solve financing problem. Credit risk plays a decisive role in whether financial institutions accept financing business decisions. Blockchain technology can reduce the operational risk of financial institutions and improve the business income of financial institutions. Secondly, the strict regulatory environment formed by blockchain technology makes the default behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises and core enterprises in a high-risk state at all times. No matter the profit distribution proportion that small and medium-sized enterprises can obtain through collusion, they will not choose to default, which effectively solves the paradox that small and medium-sized enterprises cannot obtain loans from financial institutions despite the increased probability of compliance. Then, the evolutionary game between financial institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises is balanced in that financial institutions accept business applications, small and medium-sized enterprises abide by the contract, and the convergence effect is better. Therefore, blockchain technology not only reduces the financing risk of financial institutions but also helps to solve the financing problems of small and medium-sized enterprises. Full article

We develop a game model to analyze the tacit collusion between regional ports under three different scenarios. In the first scenario, there is simultaneous pricing game between regional ports; this intends to depict pricing strategy adopted independently. In the second, we consider two competing ports that make sequential pricing decisions. Thirdly, an infinitely repeated game model is then formulated for regional ports to test the stability of Nash equilibrium. Our main finding is that there is a certain degree of tacit collusion of pricing strategy between regional ports in the competitive environment; in particular, the tacit collusion of pricing strategy will gradually stabilize with the increasing number regional ports games. A case study of Yangtze River Economic Belt is provided to illustrate the results. Full article