This paper investigates the impact of competition and the strategic inventories on the performance of a supply chain comprising two competing suppliers and one retailer. Existing literature has shown that the retailer's optimal strategy in equilibrium is to carry inventories, and the suppliers are unable to prevent this. In contrast, our results show that the suppliers will prevent the retailer from carrying strategic inventories when the degree of competition between suppliers is high, and the retailer's carrying strategic inventory is not necessary to force suppliers to lower the future wholesale price. We also find the substitutable relationship between the effect of strategic inventories and the effect of competition. When the degree of competition increases, the suppliers are worse off but the retailer and the total supply chain are both better off when carrying strategic inventories. The retailer could introduce profit sharing contracts so as to encourage suppliers to support strategic inventories which enhance the entire performance of the supply chain.

中文翻译：

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供应商竞争下的战略库存

本文研究了竞争和战略库存对包括两个竞争供应商和一个零售商的供应链绩效的影响。现有文献表明，零售商在均衡状态下的最佳策略是存货，而供应商无法阻止这种情况。相反，我们的结果表明，当供应商之间的竞争程度很高时，供应商将阻止零售商进行战略库存，而零售商的战略库存并不是强迫供应商降低未来批发价格所必需的。我们还发现战略库存效应与竞争效应之间的可替代关系。当竞争程度提高时，供应商的情况更糟，但零售商和整个供应链在进行战略库存时的情况都更好。零售商可以引入利润共享合同，以鼓励供应商支持战略库存，从而提高供应链的整体绩效。