Abstract We revisit the problem of contracting under asymmetric information in a supply chain and highlight a few important properties that have not been reported previously. In our setting, a newsvendor retailer is endowed with superior information about the demand; the retailer may signal this information to the supplier by committing to purchasing a certain quantity in advance. Previous research has focused on characterizing the minimum quantity that convinces the supplier that demand is high. In this work, we claim that in some cases, the retailer prefers to order an even greater quantity than this minimum separating quantity, since committing to an advance purchase can result in incentives for the retailer to finance the entire capacity in the market—a choice that the retailer may not adopt absent information asymmetry. Such an outcome carries important implications regarding the efficiency of the supply chain and consumer welfare. In particular, our analysis shows that asymmetric information can result in a higher capacity in the market than the complete-information case; thus, asymmetric information can mitigate the double-marginalization problem and result in higher consumer welfare. We further conduct a comparison between the incentives of the retailer to signal the demand state to the supplier (resulting in a separating equilibrium) and the incentives of the retailer to withhold her private information from the supplier (resulting in a pooling equilibrium).

中文翻译：

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信息不对称对供应链中订单和产能决策的影响

摘要 我们重新审视了供应链中信息不对称下的合同问题，并强调了一些以前没有报道过的重要属性。在我们的环境中，报摊零售商被赋予了关于需求的高级信息；零售商可以通过承诺提前购买一定数量的产品来将此信息告知供应商。先前的研究侧重于表征使供应商相信需求量很大的最小数量。在这项工作中，我们声称在某些情况下，零售商更愿意订购比这个最小分离数量更多的数量，因为承诺提前购买可能会激励零售商为市场上的整个容量提供资金——这是一种选择零售商可能不会采用缺席信息不对称。这样的结果对供应链的效率和消费者福利具有重要意义。特别是，我们的分析表明，与完全信息情况相比，信息不对称会导致市场容量更高；因此，信息不对称可以缓解双重边缘化问题，并带来更高的消费者福利。我们进一步比较了零售商向供应商发出需求状态信号的动机（导致分离均衡）和零售商向供应商隐瞒她的私人信息的动机（导致汇集均衡）。我们的分析表明，与完全信息情况相比，信息不对称会导致市场容量更高；因此，信息不对称可以缓解双重边缘化问题，并带来更高的消费者福利。我们进一步比较了零售商向供应商发出需求状态信号的动机（导致分离均衡）和零售商向供应商隐瞒她的私人信息的动机（导致汇集均衡）。我们的分析表明，与完全信息情况相比，信息不对称会导致市场容量更高；因此，信息不对称可以缓解双重边缘化问题，并带来更高的消费者福利。我们进一步比较了零售商向供应商发出需求状态信号的动机（导致分离均衡）和零售商向供应商隐瞒她的私人信息的动机（导致汇集均衡）。