multi product newsboy problem with limited capacity and outsourcing this paper considers a multi product newsboy system that produces multiple products for fulfilling independently uncertain demands which share the same production capacity to deal with possible shortage of limited capacity productions can be outsourced we consider two outsourcing strategies zero lead time outsourcing and nonzero lead time outsourcing the structural properties and solution procedures for the profit maximization models are developed numerical results are provided for obtaining some managerial insights

do minority white unemployment differences really exist we develop a model of labor force status federal employment nonfederal employment unemployment and out of the labor force that depends on human capital variables local labor market conditions and personal characteristics according to the estimated model for white non hispanic males and females a substantial difference exists between blacks and white non hispanics even after correction for the control variables however the control variables explain almost all of the difference between hispanics and white non hispanics

on inventory control of product recovery systems subject to environmental mechanisms abstract the aim of this paper is to study the impact of inventory control in reducing the carbon footprint of an organization through a stochastic inventory model our research extends the traditional minimization cost problem by incorporating environmental legislation we consider a finite horizon closed loop system whereby decisions are subject to an emissions trading scheme and to random demand and returns demand can be satisfied by two sources the primary source is environmentally friendly but expensive whereas the second is cost effective but with negative environmental consequences the problem is formulated as a stochastic dynamic problem where replenishment and carbon management decisions must be made at each period the objective is to describe how replenishment and carbon management strategies are affected by environmental constraints in particular considering the computation restriction of dynamic programming in order to extend the results we propose a genetic algorithm to find near optimal solutions for larger instances a sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the impact of carbon allowance prices emission cap and other environmental factors in the decision making process the results indicate that environmental strategies and their factors have an impact on replenishment decisions there is an emission cap from which a company must focus on strategic decisions rather than on tactical and operational decisions in addition if the carbon allowance price is such that the environmental benefit absorbs the cost of less polluting technology a change in the inventory policy must be made

determining the optimal carbon tax rate based on data envelopment analysis carbon tax policy is widely used to control greenhouse gases and how to determine a suitable carbon tax rate is very important for policy makers considering the trade off between environmental protection and economic development in an industry regulated by carbon tax policy we consider two competing firms who sell ordinary products and green products respectively in order to promote the firm who sells ordinary product to reduce carbon emissions the government of china imposes carbon tax on the ordinary products for the government three objectives are considered when it makes carbon tax policy they are increasing the government revenue reducing the government expenditure and decreasing the carbon emissions for the firms it is important to explore their pricing strategies taken into account of the government tax policy to find an optimal carbon tax rate and to achieve the three objectives simultaneously we consider this as a multiple criteria decision making problem hence we propose to use a centralized data envelopment analysis dea approach to solve it we find that when one firm produces ordinary products and the other produces green products the government may set a high tax rate while when both firms sell ordinary products the optimal tax policy for each firm is different and the government may impose a higher tax rate for one firm and a lower tax rate for the other firm

optimal production and carbon emission reduction level under cap and trade and low carbon subsidy policies abstract in recent years massive carbon emissions have caused serious global environmental damage such as a worsening greenhouse effect and thick haze to curb carbon emissions as well as maintain sustainable economic development governments promote the development of low carbon economy by issuing multiple policies among which the cap and trade policy ctp and low carbon subsidy policy lcsp are widely adopted moreover manufacturers are increasingly adopting carbon emission reduction technology to produce greener products considering related government policies and rising environmental awareness among consumers to give policy making insights to governments as well as production and carbon emission reduction decision making insights to manufacturers this paper investigates the impacts of ctp and lcsp on the production and carbon emission reduction level of a manufacturer and explores which policy is better for society the results show that the carbon emission reduction level increases as the carbon trading price increases whereas it is independent of the unit low carbon subsidy interestingly the carbon trading price does not always have a negative effect on the manufacturer s profit and the cap does not always produce a positive effect on the manufacturer s profit more importantly we find that lcsp is more beneficial to society when the environmental damage coefficient is less than a threshold but otherwise ctp is more beneficial

an economic analysis of acting white this paper formalizes a widely discussed peer eect entitled acting white acting white is modeled as a two audience signaling quandary signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer group rejection without peer eects equilibria involve all ability types choosing dierent levels of education acting white alters the equilibrium dramatically the possibly empty set of lowest ability individuals and the set of highest ability individuals continue to reveal their type through investments in education ability types in the middle interval pool on a common education level only those in the lower intervals are accepted by the group the model s predictions t many stylized facts in the anthropology and sociology literatures regarding social interactions among minority group members

optimization of manufacturing systems under environmental considerations for a greenness dependent demand abstract in this work we show that the optimization models for manufacturing systems should evolve to consider the environmental impacts of manufacturing activities and to integrate the environmental performance of finished products in particular the selection of manufacturing processes technologies and input items components should be revised with environmental consideration with this scope in mind we develop two optimization models where we consider the selection of production processes and the choice of input products in the first model a single product is offered by the firm and the demand of this product depends on its greenness in the second model the market is segmented between ordinary and green customers and the firm offers a different variety of the output product to each segment in this case both the demand and the price depend on the product greenness in both models the greenness of the output product is a decision variable that is simultaneously determined along with the other decisions in addition the models integrate environmental legislations we conduct numerical experiments on a case study from the textile sector in order to show how the integration of the product greenness impacts on the system profit and decisions

measurement error in human capital and the black white wage gap proxy variables are frequently used in economics to control for unavailable variables in a linear regression setting for example afqt scores have been used to control for human capital accumulati

racial discrimination in the labor market theory and empirics we review theories of race discrimination in the labor market taste based models can generate wage and unemployment duration differentials when combined with either random or directed search even when strong prejudice is not widespread but no existing model explains the unemployment rate differential models of statistical discrimination based on differential observability of productivity across races can explain the pattern and magnitudes of wage differentials but do not address employment and unemployment at their current state of development models of statistical discrimination based on rational stereotypes have little empirical content it is plausible that models combining elements of the search models with statistical discrimination could fit the data we suggest possible avenues to be pursued and comment briefly on the implication of existing theory for public policy jel j15 j31 j64 j71

strikes scabs and tread separations labor strife and the production of defective bridgestone firestone tires this paper provides a case study of the effect of labor relations on product quality we consider whether a long contentious strike and the hiring of permanent replacement workers by bridgestone firestone in the mid 1990s contributed to the production of an excess number of defective tires using several independent data sources we find that labor strife in the decatur plant closely coincided with lower product quality count data regression models based on two data sets of tire failures by plant year and age show significantly higher failure rates for tires produced in decatur during the labor dispute than before or after the dispute or than at other plants also an analysis of internal firestone engineering tests indicates that p235 tires from decatur performed less well if they were manufactured during the labor dispute compared with those produced after the dispute or compared with those from other non striking plants monthly data suggest that the production of defective tires was particularly high around the time wage concessions were demanded by firestone in early 1994 and when large numbers of replacement workers and permanent workers worked side by side in late 1995 and early 1996

environmental resource planning under cap and trade models for optimization abstract under the conditions of a cap and trade c t program manufacturers are restricted in total greenhouse gas emissions but allowed with options to acquire and dispose environmental resource e g certified emission quota ceq or commercialized permit for emission of certain pollutant via a market system or conduct self purification sp to reduce emission level to satisfy their overall emission needs due to production or service activities this paper analyzes the operational decisions of production systems under cap and trade conditions in which the problem is modeled as a multi stage dynamic optimization problem for each planning period the model specifically addresses the decisions on purchasing ceq reducing emission via sp and carrying over surplus emission quota seq to meet the required emission level driven by production demand for the period it also makes sure that the sum of reduced emission over the whole planning horizon meets exactly a goal of emission reduction specified at the manufacturers discretion other important problem characteristics addressed include the unit cost for reducing emission level via sp to reflect the fact that the cost increases as accumulated emission reduction increases i e the more reduced the more difficult to reduce and time related cost associated with green investment for emission reduction e g interest cost of short term loans these characteristics make the model and related analysis useful for both practitioners and researchers in this area numerical experiments were designed and carried out to verify and validate the proposed concepts

discrimination in an equilibrium search model i construct an equilibrium search model where some employers have a distaste for hiring minority workers and show that this bias results in economic discrimination against minority workers although only unprejudiced firms hire minority workers minority workers receive lower wages than workers not facing discrimination whenever any employers in the market have a distaste for minority workers one implication of the model is that gender or racial wage differentials understate the utility loss from discrimination in addition the wages of minority workers increase when their proportion increases in the labor market

optimizing an emission trading scheme for local governments a stackelberg game model and hybrid algorithm this study investigates a policy making problem for a local government to implement an emission trading scheme by considering the interactive production decisions of firms in its administrative region the market based allowance trading price formed freely among the firms in the region is investigated by taking into account regional environmental bearing capacities under the scheme the government sets the emission reduction target of the region and allocates tradable initial allowances to firms and firms plan their production according to their allowances on hand a stackelberg game model is formulated to analyze the decisions of the government and firms aiming to maximize the social welfare of the region and maximize the profit of each firm in view of the non concavity and discreteness of the decision model for the government we propose a hybrid algorithm to solve the game model efficiently this algorithm consists of a polynomial time dynamic programming binary search and genetic algorithm results reveal that i the stackelberg game model greatly supports local governments policy making on the market driven emission allowance trading scheme and that ii the social welfare is a great metric for policy making decisions on environmental regulations the market driven emission trading scheme is an effective mechanism for local governments to induce emission reduction through green technology adoption by firms however governments should set their emission reduction targets appropriately because a tight or easy regulation policy significantly affects the environmental and economic benefits as well as the social welfare

optimal acquisition and remanufacturing policies for multi product remanufacturing systems abstract this paper studies an acquisition and remanufacturing problem in a market driven multi product remanufacturing system where the remanufacturer acquires multiple used products cores of highly variable quality under independently uncertain demand and carbon emissions regulation in order to balance between the environmental and economic benefit the problem is formulated as a nonlinear programming model in presence of the quality variability of cores and carbon tax scheme subject to budget and risk constraints since the average cost of the remanufactured products is independent of the remanufacturing quantity the model is then decomposed into two separated sub problems namely the remanufacturing problem and the acquisition problem in the remanufacturing problem the optimal remanufacturing policies including the optimal remanufacturing cost thresholds and the optimal remanufacturing rate are derived in the acquisition problem the optimal policies of core portfolio acquisition quantities and remanufacturing quantities can be derived the acquisition problem viewed as an extended multi product newsvendor problem mpnp is a convex optimization problem furthermore a two tier bisection method with polynomial computational complexity can be developed to obtain the optimal policies based on the karush kuhn tucker kkt conditions finally numerical experiments are provided to show the application of the model and the effect of the quality variability

non stationary stochastic inventory lot sizing with emission and service level constraints in a carbon cap and trade system firms worldwide are taking major initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chains in response to the growing governmental and consumer pressures in real life these supply chains face stochastic and non stationary demand but most of the studies on inventory lot sizing problem with emission concerns consider deterministic demand in this paper we study the inventory lot sizing problem under non stationary stochastic demand condition with emission and cycle service level constraints considering carbon cap and trade regulatory mechanism using a mixed integer linear programming model this paper aims to investigate the effects of emission parameters product and system related features on the supply chain performance through extensive computational experiments to cover general type business settings and not a specific scenario results show that cycle service level and demand coefficient of variation have significant impacts on total cost and emission irrespective of level of demand variability while the impact of product s demand pattern is significant only at lower level of demand variability finally results also show that increasing value of carbon price reduces total cost total emission and total inventory and the scope of emission reduction by increasing carbon price is greater at higher levels of cycle service level and demand coefficient of variation the analysis of results helps supply chain managers to take right decision in different demand and service level situations

conjecture uncertainty and cooperation in prisoner s dilemma games some experimental evidence abstract this paper presents experimental tests of two models of cooperation in finitely repeated prisoner s dilemma games kreps milgrom roberts and wilson 1982 the models suggest that either a perception that the other party may use the tit for tat strategy or mutual uncertainty concerning dominant noncooperative strategies can lead to rational cooperation the experiment independently manipulated both types of uncertainty and allowed for inferences concerning the players prior homemade preferences for cooperation only in relatively restricted situations did either type of uncertainty promote cooperation instead players cooperated much more than was predicted they also cooperated more when they were certain of their opponents payoffs

comparisons of initial carbon allowance allocation rules in an o2o retail supply chain with the cap and trade regulation abstract this paper focuses on an o2o retail supply chain in the context of low carbon environment the decision models are constructed under three cases without cap and trade regulation cap and trade regulation based on grandfathering mechanism and cap and trade regulation based on benchmarking mechanism the emission reduction strategies of the supply chain members in the three cases are then discussed the paper compares the effects of the grandfathering and benchmarking mechanisms on the firm s decisions profits and social welfare firstly the results show that the unit carbon quota plays a decisive role in firm s decisions compared with the grandfathering methodology the benchmarking one can more effectively push manufacturers to produce low carbon products and motivate retailers to promote low carbon products secondly it is profitable for the retailer to cooperate with a manufacturer who has lower emission reduction cost simultaneously the retailer will prefer the benchmarking mechanism to the grandfathering mechanism thirdly for the government it is beneficial to use grandfathering mechanism for low carbon emission firms and use benchmarking mechanism for high carbon emission firms also the paper provides government and firms with conditions where the benchmarking allocation method is more suitable for sustainable development the government s decision on benchmarks is a critical factor in maximizing the social welfare

search bargaining and employer discrimination this article analyzes becker s 1957 1971 theory of employer discrimination within a search and wage bargaining setting discriminatory firms pay workers who are discriminated against less and apply stricter hiring criteria to these workers the highest profits are realized by firms with a positive discrimination coefficient moreover once ownership and management are separated both highest profits and highest utility can be realized by firms with a positive discrimination coefficient thus market forces like entry or takeovers do not ensure that wage differentials due to employer discrimination disappear

impact of efficiency investment and competition on low carbon manufacturing abstract low carbon economy has become a top agenda for many countries following the agreement in the paris meeting on climate change in this article we take price and emission sensitive demand into account and incorporate competition between the two rival manufacturers in the demand function this research takes more proactive actions incorporating carbon emissions in the strategic and operational decisions which complements the existing literature on low carbon manufacturing in which the carbon emissions attribute is often used as a constraint or only the single manufacturer s demand is considered based on game theory the pricing and carbon emissions reduction decisions are investigated our study contributes to the existing literature on low carbon manufacturing by specifically examining the impact of production efficiency carbon emissions reduction efficiency and market power structure on achieving low carbon manufacturing through the systematic analysis of optimal pricing and green technology investment decisions to improve the economic and environmental performance under different market power structures our findings provide valuable managerial implications which will help many manufacturing firms to make important strategic and operational decisions regarding low carbon manufacturing

labour unrest and the quality of production evidence from the construction equipment resale market this paper examines the construction equipment resale market to assess whether equipment produced by the world s largest manufacturer of construction machinery caterpillar experienced lower product quality in facilities that underwent contract disputes during the 1990 s analysis of auction data reveals that resale market participants significantly discounted machines produced in these dispute affected facilities additionally pieces of equipment produced in facilities undergoing unrest were resold more often received worse appraisal reports and had lower list prices taken together the evidence supports the hypothesis that workmanship at dispute affected facilities declined and that the resulting impact on the economic quality of the equipment produced was significant the dispute was associated with at least 400 million in lost service flows due to inferior quality equipment alone

cooperation among strangers with limited information about reputation abstract the amount of institutional intervention necessary to secure efficiency enhancing cooperation in markets and organizations in circumstances where interactions take place among essentially strangers depends critically on the amount of information informal reputation mechanisms need transmit models based on subgame perfection find that the information necessary to support cooperation is recursive in nature and thus information generating and processing requirements are quite demanding models that do not rely on subgame perfection on the other hand suggest that the information demands may be quite modest the experiment we present indicates that even without any reputation information there is a non negligible amount of cooperation that is however quite sensitive to the cooperation costs for high costs providing information about a partner s immediate past action increases cooperation recursive information about the partners previous partners reputation further promotes cooperation regardless of the cooperation costs

the impact of fine size and uncertainty on punishment and deterrence theory and evidence from the laboratory abstract increasing punishment is typically considered first choice to boost deterrence of unwarranted behavior such as false financial statements asset misappropriation stealing or corruption however if there is uncertainty on a potential violator s guilt judges and juries willingness to impose punishment may decrease in its magnitude thus increasing the magnitude of punishment may backfire when the reduced punishment probability is anticipated by potential violators based on a theoretical model our paper is the first to analyze the interdependency of violation and punishment behavior in a laboratory experiment and to contrast it to the standard partial equilibrium perspective on deterrence that considers the punishment probability to be independent of the fine size varying both the magnitude of fines and the degree of uncertainty shows that in case of legal uncertainty the deterrent effect of higher fines is far less pronounced than if the punishment probability was exogenous

incentives in organizations n 1975 steven kerr published on the folly of rewarding a while hoping for b the argument was simple you get what you pay for kerr distilled this unifying theme from a disparate set of examples involving politicians soldiers doctors orphanage directors professors and students as well as manufacturing and clerical employees and even human resource managers from these examples kerr pp 77980 concluded that two main causes of distorted incentives are fascination with an objective criterion where individuals seek to establish simple quantifiable standards against which to measure and reward performance and overemphasis on highly visible behaviors when some parts of the task are highly visible while others are not it took agency theory 15 years to express kerr s title not to mention to evaluate or extend his conclusions during this period agency theory was obsessed with the tradeoff between incentives and insurance even though clear eyed observations like kerr s about the design and performance of real incentive contracts suggested that several other issues are at least as important fortunately recent work has brought agency theory not only to kerr s position but beyond in this paper i summarize four new strands in agency theory that help me think about incentives in real organizations as a point of departure i begin with a quick sketch of the classic agency model i then discuss static models of objective performance measurement that sharpen kerr s argument repeated game models of subjective performance assessments incentives for skill development rather than simply for effort and incentive contracts between versus within organizations i con

joint production and pricing decisions for multiple products with cap and trade and carbon tax regulations abstract cap and trade and carbon tax regulations are the two main low carbon policies to curb carbon emissions this paper studies the joint production and pricing problem of a manufacturing firm with multiple products under cap and trade and carbon tax regulations and compares the effects of the two regulations on the total carbon emissions the firm s profit and social welfare the firm faces price sensitive demands and the demands for these products are independent firstly we find that the optimal number of products to be produced under cap and trade regulation carbon tax regulation is determined by the emission trading prices and the cap tax rate secondly we detect that the optimal cap tax rate is decreasing increasing or constant in the environmental damage coefficient finally we discover that the social welfare under carbon tax regulation is not less than that under cap and trade regulation although there is neither one regulation always inducing more profit and having advantages in curbing carbon emissions than the other one

low carbon production with low carbon premium in cap and trade regulation abstract manufacturers face a choice of whether to reduce their carbon emissions through employing low carbon technologies though many carbon regulations are set up to curb carbon emissions some firms choose not to take low carbon production because the additional cost of low carbon progressing is high however low carbon production would be a better alternative when we consider consumer s low carbon premium in the cap and trade system in this work we solve the manufacturer s multi product joint pricing and production problem when consumers value the low carbon product higher than the ordinary product our findings provide firms with conditions where low carbon production is profitable furthermore we find that the cap and trade would constrain the total carbon emissions and promote low carbon production simultaneously under certain conditions

exploring the effect of cap and trade mechanism on firm s production planning and emission reduction strategy abstract cap and trade mechanism has a significant effect on firm s production and operation decisions and carbon emissions this study develops a mathematical model to examine the effect of cap and trade mechanism on firm s production planning and emission reduction strategy based on the model the firm s critical production planning decisions such as the optimal production quantity optimal allowance selling price and the maximum profit under the cap and trade mechanism are derived firstly then based on the cost benefit analysis the conditions under which the firm makes the optimal emission reduction strategy between buying carbon allowance from the carbon trading market and conducting low carbon processing are identified the result suggests that when the low carbon processing cost is greater than the potential opportunity benefit the firm is inclined to purchase carbon allowance from the carbon trading market and vice versa finally a numerical analysis is conducted to investigate the effects of relevant factors such as carbon quotas carbon emission rate low carbon processing cost and transaction cost on firm s production and operation decisions the results indicate that under the cap and trade mechanism the transaction cost has a positive effect on allowance selling price the firm s optimal production quantity and maximum profit is positively related to carbon quotas while negatively related to carbon emission rate and low carbon processing cost this research contributes to enrich related literature and knowledge with regard to carbon emissions reduction at the firm level and highlight the critical importance of cap and trade mechanism in reducing carbon emissions

racial disparity in unemployment abstract in the united states black workers earn less than their white counterparts and have higher rates of unemployment empirical work indicates that most of this wage gap is accounted for by differences in cognitive skills that emerge at an early age in this paper we demonstrate that the same is not true for black white disparity in unemployment a large unexplained unemployment differential motivates the paper s second contribution a potential theoretical explanation this explanation is built around a model that embeds statistical discrimination into the subjective worker evaluation process that lies at the root of the efficiency wage theory of equilibrium unemployment

design of sustainable supply chains under the emission trading scheme increase in environmental concerns together with legislations are forcing industries to take a fresh look at the impact of their supply chain operations on the environment this paper introduces a mixed integer linear programming based framework for sustainable supply chain design that considers life cycle assessment lca principles in addition to the traditional material balance constraints at each node in the supply chain indeed the framework distinguishes between solid and liquid wastes as well as gaseous emissions due to various production processes and transportation systems the framework is used to evaluate the tradeoffs between economic and environmental objectives under various cost and operating strategies in the aluminum industry the results suggest that current legislation and emission trading schemes ets must be strengthened and harmonized at the global level in order to drive a meaningful environmental strategy moreover the model demonstrates that efficient carbon management strategies will help decision makers to achieve sustainability objectives in a cost effective manner

dispute resolution or escalation the strategic gaming of feedback withdrawal options in online markets many online markets encourage traders to make good after an unsatisfactory transaction by offering the opportunity to withdraw negative reputational feedback in a dispute resolution phase motivated by field evidence and guided by theoretical considerations we use laboratory markets with two sided moral hazard to show that this option contrary to the intended purpose produces an escalation of dispute the mutual feedback withdrawal option creates an incentive to leave negative feedback independent of the opponent s behavior to improve one s bargaining position in the dispute resolution phase this leads to distorted reputation information and less trust and trustworthiness in the trading phase buyers who refuse to give feedback strategically even when it comes at a personal cost mitigate the detrimental impact it is also mitigated in markets with one sided moral hazard and a unilateral feedback withdrawal option the supplementary appendix is available at https doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2017 2802 t

collaborative mechanism of a sustainable supply chain with environmental constraints and carbon caps abstract negative impacts on environment such as carbon emissions and pollution resulting from the business activities of firms in a supply chain have attracted great attention worldwide hence one of the crucial issues for supply chain management is the trade off between economic objectives and environmental sustainability this paper focuses on investigating the government policy incentive mechanism with which supply chain members are motivated to work collaboratively to reduce carbon and pollutant emissions by investing in producing environmental friendly products efp such a mechanism affects the transfer price through negotiation between the supply chain firms and consequently it has an impact on the supply chain s value transition and profit allocation a collaborative supply chain decision making framework is formulated with environmental constraints and carbon caps its objective is to maximize the net present value of an integrated supply chain as well as satisfy the interests of its individual members our key contribution lies in exploring a decision making mechanism for an environmentally sustainable supply chain that is jointly constrained by environmental carrying capacities and carbon caps and also takes into account government policy incentives the results show that collaboration between supply chain members plays a crucial role in improving their environmental performance as the transfer price is determined through negotiations to share government subsidies to satisfy the individual interests of supply chain members while the level of pollutants and carbon emissions are in compliance with environmental standards

the role of co opetition in low carbon manufacturing abstract low carbon manufacturing has become a strategic objective for many developed and developing economies this study examines the role of co opetition in achieving this objective we investigate the pricing and emissions reduction policies for two rival manufacturers with different emission reduction efficiencies under the cap and trade policy we assume that the product demand is price and emission sensitive based on non cooperative and cooperative games the optimal solutions for the two manufacturers are derived in the purely competitive and co opetitive market environments respectively through the discussion and numerical analysis we uncovered that in both pure competition and co opetition models the two manufacturers optimal prices depend on the unit price of carbon emission trading in addition higher emission reduction efficiency leads to lower optimal unit carbon emissions and higher profit in both the pure competition and co petition models interestingly compared to pure competition co opetition will lead to more profit and less total carbon emissions however the improvement in economic and environmental performance is based on higher product prices and unit carbon emissions

the role of revenue sharing and first mover advantage in emission abatement with carbon tax and consumer environmental awareness abstract in this study we explore the role of revenue sharing and first mover advantage in manufacturer s carbon emission abatement effort and the firms profitability in a linear demand setting where the government might impose some carbon emission charges and consumers may have environmental awareness we consider a supply chain system consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer either of them can move first to offer the other firm a wholesale price contract wp or a revenue sharing contract rs which is termed as abatement level promise strategy pr and abatement level requirement strategy rq respectively our analysis shows that under both pr and rq there exists a unique abatement level maximizing the manufacturer s profit in wp and rs respectively moreover both firms incentives for abatement are perfectly aligned under pr but are misaligned under rq when the marginal abatement cost is large contrary to conventional wisdom rs does not necessarily dull the manufacturer s effort in abatement it depends on whether she possesses first mover advantage and whether consumers have environmental awareness further with consumer environmental awareness numerically or without both firms always prefer to possess first mover advantage but the system s profit under rq is smaller than that under pr numerically surprisingly whether a greater share of revenue benefits a firm depending on whether the firm possesses first mover advantage numerically finally under both rq numerically and pr rs fails to coordinate the system

divergent paths a new perspective on earnings differences between black and white men since 1940 we present new evidence on the evolution of black white earnings differences among all men including both workers and nonworkers we study two measures i the level earnings gap the racial earnings difference at a given quantile and ii the earnings rank gap the difference between a black man s percentile in the black earnings distribution and the position he would hold in the white earnings distribution after narrowing from 1940 to the mid 1970s the median black white level earnings gap has since grown as large as it was in 1950 at the same time the median black man s relative position in the earnings distribution has remained essentially constant since 1940 so that the improvement then worsening of median relative earnings have come mainly from the stretching and narrowing of the overall earnings distribution black men at higher percentiles have experienced significant advances in relative earnings since 1940 due mainly to strong positional gains among those with college educations large relative schooling gains by blacks at the median and below have been more than counteracted by rising return to skill in the labor market which has increasingly penalized remaining racial differences in schooling at the bottom of the distribution

the provision of incentives in firms i ncentives are the essence of economics despite many wide ranging claims about their supposed importance there has been little empirical assessment of incentive provision for workers the purpose of this paper is to critically overview existing work on the provision of incentives since the interests of workers and their employers are not always aligned a large theoretical literature has emphasized how firms design compensation contracts to induce employees to operate in the firm s interest this literature has reached into many areas of compensation and has pointed to a multitude of different mechanisms that can be used to induce workers to act in the interests of their employers these include piece rates options discretionary bonuses promotions profit sharing efficiency wages deferred compensation and so on my objective here is to evaluate this literature in the light of a growing empirical literature on compensation where possible i will address the literature from two perspectives first an underlying assumption of this literature is that individuals respond to contracts that reward performance accordingly i consider whether agents behave in this way and whether these responses are always in the firm s interest second i address whether firms write contracts with these responses in mind in other words do contracts look like the predictions of the theory incentives are provided to workers

on the blurring of the color line wages and employment for black males of different skin tones abstract we evaluate the role skin color plays in earnings and employment for black males in the nlsy97 by applying a novel scaled measure of skin tone to a nationally representative sample and by estimating the evolution of labor market differentials over time we bridge a burgeoning literature on skin color with more established literatures on wage differentials and labor market discrimination we find that while intraracial wage gaps widen with experience gaps between the lightest skinned black workers and whites remain constant suggesting that a blurring of the color line elicits subtle yet meaningful variation in earnings differentials over time

work incentives hierarchy and internal labor markets this paper argues that contracts with payment based on a ranking of employee performance can provide performance incentives even under asymmetric information that prevents payment based on individual performance only being enforceable such contracts also fit with five features of labor markets that have aroused considerable interest 1 hierarchical wage structures 2 internal promotion 3 wage rates that rise with seniority and experience more than productivity 4 the variance of earnings increasing with experience and 5 wage rates attached to jobs rather than individuals with differentials set by administrative procedures rather than by reference to external market wages

why do minority men earn less a study of wage differentials among the highly educated en in several minority groups in the united states have wages that are substantially lower than those of the benchmark majority group non hispanic white men several generations of labor economists have sought to understand the forces that drive these disparities this research program is potentially important for the purpose of determining whether minority wage gaps are likely to be narrowed more effectively by increasing enforcement of antidiscrimination laws or by implementing policies that reduce inequity in educational opportunity existing work shows large racial and ethnic differences in premarket factors especially formal schooling and suggests that these differences play a key role in shaping wage differences one example is trejo 1997 who finds that third and higher generation mexican american men earn 21 less than non hispanic white men approximately three quarters of the earnings gap is found to be attributable to the mexican americans relative youth and to differences in english language proficiency and years of schooling a second example is neal and johnson 1996 who find that black men earn 24 less than do non hispanic white men differences in schooling account for only about one fifth of this gap when the authors condition on performance on a basic verbal and math skills test the armed forces qualification test afqt though the differential between wages of blacks and whites declines to approximately onethird of its unadjusted level 1 trejo s 1997 study is a nice example of the traditional approach to studying race ethnicity wage gaps traditional in the sense that the explanatory variables in the study are conventional objective measures of human capital such as years of schooling and language ability neal and john

racial discrimination in labor markets with posted wage offers we analyze race discrimination in labor markets in which wage offers are posted if employers with job vacancies receive multiple applicants they choose the most qualified but may choose arbitrarily among equally qualified applicants in the model firms post wages workers choose where to apply and firms decide which workers to hire labor market frictions greatly amplify racial disparities so mild discriminatory tastes or small productivity differences can produce large wage differentials between the races compared with the nondiscriminatory equilibrium the discriminatory equilibrium features lower net output lower wages for both white and black workers and greater profits for firms this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

sustainable newsvendor models under trade credit abstract governments and industry are actively seeking means of reducing global warming the management of supply chains while taking into account the effects on the environment is an important issue therefore we present newsvendor models that take into account carbon emissions trade credit and product recycling in which the credit period affects the risk of default and the demand is uncertain in this paper the objective of these models is to determine the optimal ordering quantity credit period and recycle price in order to maximize total profits three carbon emission incentives are taken into account 1 carbon tax 2 direct cap 3 carbon cap and trade we also incorporate risk management methods to limit risk of default providing a solution for each type of carbon emission incentive numerical analysis is used to illustrate the implementation of solutions and the degree to which system parameters affect profits and decision making the results show that higher carbon taxes reduce recycle prices order quantities and total profits increasing the carbon cap leads to increases in recycle price order quantity and total profit a higher carbon price drives down the recycle price order quantity and total profits

a carbon market sensitive optimization model for integrated forward reverse logistics globalized supply chains volatile energy and material prices increased carbon regulations and competitive marketing pressure for environmental sustainability are driving supply chain decision makers to reduce carbon emissions enterprises face the necessity and the challenge of implementing strategies to reduce their supply chain environmental impact in order to remain competitive one of the most important strategic issues in this context is the configuration of the logistics network the decision concerning the design of an optimal network of the supply chain plays a vital role in determining the total carbon footprint across the supply chain and also the total cost therefore the logistics network should be designed in a way that it could reduce both the cost and the carbon footprint across the supply chain in this context this research proposes a quantitative optimization model for integrated forward reverse logistics with carbon footprint considerations by integrating the carbon emission into a quantitative operational decision making model with regard to facility layout decisions the proposed research incorporates carbon emission parameters with various decision variables and modifies traditional integrated forward reverse logistics model into decision making quantitative operational model minimizing both the total cost and the carbon footprint the proposed model investigates the extent to which carbon reduction requirements can be addressed under a particular set of parameters such as customer demand rate of return of products etc by selecting proper policy as an alternative to the costly investment in carbon reducing technologies to solve the quantitative model this research implements a modified and efficient forest data structure to derive the optimal network configuration minimizing both the cost and the total carbon footprint of the network a comparative analysis shows the outperformance of the proposed approach over the conventional genetic algorithm ga for large problem sizes

a theory of dual labor markets with application to industrial policy discrimination and keynesian unemployment this paper develops a model of dual labor markets based on employers need to motivate workers in order to elicit effort from their workers employers may find it optimal to pay more than the going wage this changes fundamentally the character of labor markets the model is applied to a wide range of labor market phenomena it provides a coherent framework for understanding the claims of industrial policy advocates it also can provide the basis for a theory of occupational segregation and discrimination that will not be eroded by market forces finally the model provides the basis for a theory of involuntary unemployment

collusion as public monitoring becomes noisy experimental evidence this paper uses laboratory experiments to test the implications of the theory of repeated games on equilibrium payoffs and estimate strategies in an infinitely repeated prisoners dilemma game with imperfect public monitoring we find that subjects payoffs i decrease as noise increases and ii are lower than the theoretical maximum for low noise but exceed it for high noise under the assumption that the subjects strategy uses thresholds on the public signal for transition between cooperation and punishment states we find that the best fitting strategy simply compares the most recent public signal against a single threshold

managing carbon footprints in inventory management abstract there is a broad consensus that mankind must reduce carbon emissions to mitigate global warming it is generally accepted that carbon emission trading is one of the most effective market based mechanisms to curb the amount of carbon emissions this paper investigates how firms manage carbon footprints in inventory management under the carbon emission trading mechanism we derive the optimal order quantity and analytically and numerically examine the impacts of carbon trade carbon price and carbon cap on order decisions carbon emissions and total cost we make interesting observations from the numerical examples and provide managerial insights from the analytical results

imperfect public monitoring with costly punishment an experimental study this paper experimentally investigates the effects of a costly punishment option on cooperation and social welfare in long finitely repeated public good contribution games in a perfect monitoring environment increasing the severity of the potential punishment monotonically increases average net payoffs in a more realistic imperfect monitoring environment we find a u shaped relationship access to a standard punishment technology in this setting significantly decreases net payoffs even in the long run access to a severe punishment technology leads to roughly the same payoffs as with no punishment option as the benefits of increased cooperation offset the social costs of punishing jel c92 h41 k42

the impact of environmental management on firm performance environmental management has the potential to play a pivotal role in the financial performance of the firm many individuals suggest that profitability is hurt by the higher production costs of environmental management initiatives while others cite anecdotal evidence of increased profitability a theoretical model is proposed that links strong environmental management to improved perceived future financial performance as measured by stock market performance the linkage to firm performance is tested empirically using financial event methodology and archival data of firm level environmental and financial performance significant positive returns were measured for strong environmental management as indicated by environmental performance awards and significant negative returns were measured for weak environmental management as indicated by environmental crises the implicit financial market valuation of these events also was estimated cross sectional analysis of the environmental award events revealed differences for first time awards and between industries first time award announcements were associated with greater increases in market valuation although smaller increases were observed for firms in environmentally dirty industries possibly indicative of market skepticism this linkage between environmental management and financial performance can be used by both researchers and practitioners as one measure of the benefits experienced by industry leaders and as one criterion against which to measure investment alternatives

trust but verify monitoring inspection costs and opportunism under limited observability abstract is feedback on trustworthiness necessary for the functioning of economic relationships in many real world economic environments such feedback can at best be acquired through costly monitoring raising questions of how trust and efficiency can be maintained in the lab we conduct a modified finite horizon binary trust game in which we vary the observability of the trustee s actions in the baseline condition trustors can perfectly observe their trustee s actions we compare this to a condition in which that actions are unobservable and three conditions in which they must be actively monitored at zero low or high cost respectively counter intuitively differences in observability do not lead to significant differences in trust and efficiency but the levels are supported by very different information structures while trustors monitored every action under zero observation costs most of trusting actions were blind trustors did not learn whether their trust was honored or not under costly monitoring even under complete unobservability almost half of the available surplus was realized there are distributive impacts however the gains from trust favor trustees under the more adverse informational conditions the behavioral patterns are consistent with the fact that trustors beliefs about their trustee s conduct are almost invariant across conditions

a language theory of discrimination any advanced industrial society is composed of a number of speech communities with different verbal and nonverbal languages in particular in the united states blacks and whites and men and women have sharply differing methods of speaking and listening this paper develops a model in which people can only work together if they speak the same language and in which it is costly to learn a second language the competitive market will tend to minimize communication through segregation but if interaction is required the cost will be borne by the minority a number of nontrivial predictions are derived from the model

emission permit banking pollution abatement and production inventory control of the firm abstract in this paper we present a dynamic model modified with emission permit banking and pollution abatement and investigate the effect of emission permit banking and pollution abatement on the production inventory strategy of the firm after introducing emission permit banking and pollution abatement the cost function consists of the inventory holding and production costs the cost of investment in abatement capital goods and the emission procurement selling cost furthermore the inventory holding costs are linear production costs are non decreasing and convex functions of the production level and the costs of investment in abatement capital goods are increasing and convex functions of the investment level we compare the optimal production inventory strategy before emission permit banking and pollution abatement and thereafter the mathematical investigation is based on the arrow karlin model

supply chain coordination with green technology under cap and trade regulation abstract cap and trade regulation is generally accepted as one of the most effective market based mechanisms to curb carbon emissions in this paper we study the production and emission abatement decisions of a make to order supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer under cap and trade regulation specifically the manufacturer can reduce unit product carbon emission by using green technology with the cooperation of a retailer by certain contracts who sell the products to environment concerned consumers wholesale price and cost sharing contracts are considered in the supply chain we list some main conclusions here first as carbon trading price increases the optimal production quantities the optimal abatement levels firstly decrease increase and then remain constant second both wholesale price and cost sharing contracts can coordinate the supply chain last combining the optimal operational decisions under the two contracts with two part tariff agreement we design a contract in which the retailer pays a lump fee to the manufacturer and find that there is an interval of the lump fee to achieve pareto improvement for the two firms

the effect of emission permit trading with banking on firm s production inventory strategies abstract we investigate the effect of tradable emission permits with banking on the production inventory strategy of a firm in this paper the basis of the work is the well known arrow karlin dynamic production inventory model in which the inventory holding costs are linear and production costs are non decreasing and convex functions of the production level the cost of environmental protection is taken into account in the model we assume there is an emission trading program with which firms are able to purchase their emission rights or sell them and the rights are allowed to be deposited in intertemporal trading we compare the optimal production inventory strategies of this paper with those without emission permits

a newsvendor approach to compliance and production under cap and trade emissions regulation abstract since the 1990s governmental agencies have increasingly turned to market based cap and trade programs to control the emission of pollutants firms subject to cap and trade regulation are typically required to acquire emissions allowances via open auction markets the cost to acquire allowances may impose a substantial financial burden on a firm while emissions reduction efforts may eliminate some firm s need to acquire additional allowances there are still numerous firms that need to purchase additional allowances on the open market this study presents a new forward buying heuristic designed for those firms that need to purchase emissions allowances via auctions which reduces the impact of emissions allowance acquisitions on the firms financial performance the heuristic designated as the newsvendor production planning with emissions allowance forward buying nppafb method applies a forward buying algorithm to determine the number of periods for which to forward buy allowances the current production order up to level and the current and future emissions allowance requirements which serves as the order up to level for allowance purchases additionally nppafb also authorizes unused emissions allowances to be sold when market conditions are favorable compared against three existing production planning and allowance procurement strategies a simulation exercise finds that the nppafb method significantly reduces a firm s emissions allowance expenditures these results indicate that heuristic can be readily adopted by any firm that is required to procure emissions allowances via open markets in an effort to improve the firm s profitability

the emergence persistence and recent widening of the racial unemployment gap census data show that the ratio of black to white unemployment rates currently in excess of 2 1 was small or nonexistent before 1940 widened dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s and widened again in the 1980s the authors decompose changes in the unemployment gap over the years 1880 1990 to identify the separate contributions of changes in observable worker characteristics and shifts in labor demand nearly all of the widening of the gap during the 1940s and 1950s can be attributed to regional shifts of workers and declining demand in markets where black workers were concentrated after 1970 improvements in the relative educational status of black workers would have narrowed the unemployment gap slightly but demand shifts adverse to black workers more than canceled out these gains

the role of human capital in earnings differences between black and white men d uring the past 50 years the earnings of black men have increased substantially both in absolute terms and relative to those of white men as shown in figure 1 in 1940 the black white weekly earnings ratio among men ages 25 34 was 49 percent by 1980 it had increased to 79 percent during the 1980s however the overall black white earnings gap did not narrow and at younger ages the gap actually widened although the 1980s is not the first decade since 1940 in which black men made little or no gains in relative earnings the 1950s was another the lack of progress in the 1980s is nevertheless puzzling and a source of concern this article examines the factors underlying the differential in earnings between black men and white men with a focus on the role of human capital since 1940 successive generations of black men entering the labor force have been increasingly more educated relative to white men both in terms of years of school completed and in the quality of schooling obtained as the education and income levels of black parents increased racial differences in the transmission of human capital in the home were also likely to have narrowed this convergence in educational differences combined with the migration of blacks out of the south contributed to the narrowing in the racial gap in earnings over the 1940 80 period particularly in the first half of the period but human capital factors education and migration were not the only source of convergence in black white differences in earnings the patterns of change in the earnings gap support the contention that declining labor market discrimination against blacks has also contributed to the rise in the black white earnings ratio moreover the acquisition of human capital itself has been strongly affected by societal and governmental discrimination since blacks were long provided with greatly inferior schooling resources

the theory of moral hazard and unobservable behaviour part i principal agent models are studied in which outcomes conditional on the agent s action are uncertain and the agent s behaviour therefore unobservable for a model with bounded agent s utility conditions are given under which the first best equilibrium can be approximated arbitrarily closely by contracts relating payment to observable outcomes for general models it is shown that the solution may not always be obtained by using the agent s first order conditions as constraint general conditions of lagrangean type are given for problems in which contracts are finite dimensional 1 the moral hazard situation

robust multi item newsboy models with a budget constraint abstract in this paper we present robust newsboy models with uncertain demand the traditional approach to describing uncertainty is by means of probability density functions in this paper we present an alternative approach using deterministic optimization models we describe uncertainty using two types of demand scenarios namely interval and discrete scenarios for interval demand scenarios we only require a lower and an upper bound for the uncertain demand of each item while for discrete demand scenarios we require a set of likely demand outcomes for each item using the above scenarios to describe demand uncertainty we develop several minimax regret formulations for the multi item newsboy problem with a budget constraint for the problems involving interval demand scenarios we develop linear time optimal algorithms we show that the corresponding models with discrete demand scenarios are np hard and that they are solvable by dynamic programming finally we extend the above results to the case of mixed scenarios where the demand of some of the items is described by interval scenarios and the demand of the remaining items is described by discrete scenarios

multi item production planning with carbon cap and trade mechanism abstract carbon emission control becomes a challenge in recent years and carbon emission trading is an effective way to curb carbon emission this paper investigates the multi item production planning problem with carbon cap and trade mechanism in which a firm uses a common capacity and carbon emission quota to produce multiple products for fulfilling independent stochastic demands and the firm can buy or sell the right to emit carbon on a trading market of carbon emission a profit maximization model is proposed to characterize the optimization problem the optimal policy of production and carbon trading decisions is analyzed and an efficient solution method with linear computational complexity is presented for solving the optimal solution the impacts of carbon price carbon cap on the shadow price of the common capacity production decisions carbon emission and the total profit are investigated the comparisons of the carbon cap and trade policy and the taxation policy are given to show the effectiveness of the policies numerical analyses are presented for illustrating our findings and obtaining some managerial insights and policy implication

sustainable trade credit and replenishment decisions with credit linked demand under carbon emission constraints abstract in this paper we consider issues of sustainability in the context of joint trade credit and inventory management in which the demand depends on the length of the credit period offered by the retailer to its customers we quantify the impacts of the credit period and environmental regulations on the inventory model starting with some mild assumptions we first analyze the model with generalized demand and default risk rates under the carbon cap and trade policy and then we make some extensions to the model with the carbon offset policy we further analytically examine the effects of carbon emission parameters on the retailer s trade credit and replenishment strategies finally a couple of numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are given to illustrate the features of the proposed model which is followed by concluding remarks

unemployment dynamics and duration dependence a major issue in the analysis of unemployment durations concerns distinguishing genuine duration dependence of the exit rate out of unemployment from unobserved heterogeneity we present a method for the nonparametric estimation of both phenomena designed to be applicable to time series data on aggregate outflows from different duration classes the model explicitly takes into account that individual exit rates are affected by the business cycle and by seasonal effects the method is applied to u s data we find diverging duration effects among black and white individuals however except for white males duration dependence is dominated by unobserved heterogeneity

racial prejudice and labour market penalties during economic downturns do economic downturns encourage racist attitudes does this in turn lead to worse labour market outcome for minorities we assess these important questions using british attitude and labour force data the attitude data show that racial prejudice is countercyclical with the effect driven by large increases for high skilled middle aged working men a 1 point increase in unemployment is estimated to increase self reported racial prejudice by 4 points correspondingly the labour force data show that racial employment and wage gaps are counter cyclical with the largest effects also observed for high skilled men especially in the manufacturing and construction industries a 1 point increase in unemployment is estimated to increase the wage gap by 3 these results are entirely consistent with the theoretical literature which proposes that racial prejudice and discrimination are the result of labour market competition among individuals with similar traits and that the effects of this competition are exacerbated during periods of economic downturn

the effects of regulating benchmarks abstract in financial markets dealers may take advantage of information asymmetries and extract a rent from buy side traders we show that an increase in the precision of a benchmark reduces noise in market prices and increases participation by overcoming traders and regulators inability to penalize dealers sufficiently

analyzing the impacts of carbon regulatory mechanisms on supplier and mode selection decisions an application to a biofuel supply chain this paper analyzes the impacts of carbon regulatory mechanisms on replenishment decisions in a biofuel supply chain we employ mathematical models for operations which integrate replenishment and supplier transportation mode selection decisions these models explicitly account for carbon emissions that may result from transportation and inventory storage activities this research is motivated by observations indicating that nearly 19 of the energy consumption and 25 of the energy related carbon dioxide emissions worldwide arise from transportation because freight transportation is expected to continue to grow we consider the impacts of different carbon regulatory mechanisms on transportation and inventory replenishment decisions in a biofuel supply chain a set of extensive numerical experiments uses the biofuel supply chain context to analyze the impacts of different regulatory mechanisms including carbon cap carbon tax carbon cap and trade and carbon offset on performance we use existing methodologies to calculate emissions as a function of distance traveled load weight and transportation mode used we also use publicly available data to derive representative biomass transportation costs as a consequence our numerical results are meaningful and give a realistic representation of the relationships between emissions from different transportation modes and the resulting costs the results of our computational experiments indicate that carbon regulatory mechanisms have a non trivial impact on replenishment schedules and as a consequence costs and emissions in the supply chain

messy marginal costs internal pricing of environmental aspects on the firm level abstract internal pricing of environmental aspects is usually not embedded in management accounting systems therefore we first show that pricing from a corporative perspective is possible and applicable contrary to common belief we also show that marginal costs curves of environmental aspects are often not monotonic and price changes are highly context specific we introduce a model that addresses different environmental aspects that translate into constraints or change direct cost factors in the objective function environmental constraints originate from different types of limit values concerning emissions and production processes as well as restraining the potential environmental damage as the outcome of ecological valuation methods direct cost factors include the taxation of emissions and costs stemming from being involved in the emissions trading market our model allows for calculating the marginal indirect costs of these environmental aspects as the constraints might enforce factor and product substitutions we show that the marginal costs differ substantially from the direct costs and do not follow a predictable pattern sensitivity analysis and parametric programming are applied to set up an internal pricing and cost allocation scheme for environmental aspects specifically focusing on the pricing of emissions resources and processes of production and recycling the model s implications on corporate decision making are illustrated by a numerical example that draws on the opportunity of process substitution e g producing a product on different machines even though we cannot use original data for proprietary reasons such settings are highly relevant in industry and the energy sector