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The shipping industry plays an important role in international trade and world economic development. In particular, the rapid growth of the shipping industry since 2020 has become an important factor in supporting and stimulating the rapid recovery of the global economy in the post epidemic era. However, under the background that climate warming has increasingly become the theme of common concern for all mankind, greenhouse gas emission reduction has increasingly attracted the attention of governments of all countries, and has also become the requirement for production and operation of all industries, the green, environmental protection and sustainable development of the shipping industry have also become the focus of participants in all sectors. As environmental problems put forward requirements of a green shipping industry, some policies aimed at reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon tax, have brought considerations to the strategies of ports and enterprises, especially concerning their competition and cooperation. This study established a shipping supply chain system composed of two ports and one shipping company in order to analyse the impact of carbon tax on the shipping supply chain, and to optimize the decision‐making of government, ports and shipping companies. Through three‐level Stackelberg game of four models including ports cooperating or not cooperating with each other, and carbon tax levied on ports or the shipping company, the study finds that the collection of carbon tax will reduce the container handling volume of ports thus reducing the profits of both ports and the shipping company, but the handling volume when the government puts carbon tax on ports is lower than that when it puts carbon tax on the shipping company, and the handling volume under the port cooperation mode is lower than that under the port non‐cooperation mode. As the collector of carbon tax, the government's income when taxing ports is higher than that when taxing shipping companies, and when ports cooperate, the government's income is lower than that when ports do not cooperate. Moreover, no matter the ports cooperate with each other or not, the impact of carbon tax on port container handling volume under the mode of carbon tax levied by the government on ports is more significant than that when carbon tax is levied on the shipping company, leaving the former mode a lower container handling volume and lower profit. The findings of this study have the following significance and suggestions for the participants of shipping supply industry: In order to maximize the government's target value, the government should give priority to taxing shipping companies rather than ports; Under the background of carbon tax, ports should choose limited non‐cooperation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the green maritime transportation, green investment and vertical alliances between port and shipping enterprises are effective ways to reduce maritime emissions. In this paper, we consider a maritime supply chain consisting of a port, a shipping company, and a forwarder. The port and shipping company determine individual green investment to reduce emission pollution. There are three vertical alliance strategies for the shipping company under green investment: no alliance, alliance with the port, and alliance with the forwarder. We obtain the optimal alliance strategy under the same green investment entity and the optimal choice for the investment entity under the same alliance strategy. In addition, we analyze the impacts of different alliance strategies and investment entities on consumer surplus and social welfare. The results show that whether the port implements the green investment or the shipping company implements green investment, when all three alliance strategies are feasible, there is always a higher green investment level, a higher demand, and a lower shipping service charge, and alliance strategies lead to greater profits for the maritime supply chain. Under the same alliance strategy, the choice of investment entity is affected by the green investment cost coefficient. If the green investment cost coefficient of the investor is too high, then the enterprise's green investment cannot improve the maritime supply chain profit. Therefore, port and shipping enterprises should reasonably set green input according to their own conditions to maximize the profit of maritime supply chain. Vertical alliances can improve environmental performance as well as increase consumer surplus and social welfare. In particular, under the shipping company green investment, alliance between the shipping company and downstream forwarder can precisely grasp the market demand and achieve the optimal social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since dual channel supply chain has become one of the main modes of supply chain, its research has acquired great significance. This paper constructs a low-carbon dual channel supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer. The manufacturer produces low-carbon product and high carbon product with substitution relationship. The retailer sells high carbon product in traditional channel. The manufacturer also sells low-carbon product in direct channel. The government, manufacturer and retailer conduct a three-level Stackelberg game. This paper studies the optimal decisions of the government, manufacturer and retailer under the three modes of carbon tax + subsidy, carbon tax only and subsidy only. It has been found that for social welfare, the carbon tax + subsidy model is higher than the subsidy model and carbon tax model. For manufacturer profit, the subsidy mode is the highest, followed by the carbon tax + subsidy mode. For retailer profit, the carbon tax + subsidy model is equal to the carbon tax model. The increase in the proportion of consumers who prefer high carbon product in the total market or product cost of low-carbon product, will increase the profit of traditional channel and reduce the profit of direct channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green financing is an effective means to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve environmental efficiency in their operations. This paper studies two financing strategies of a carbon-dependent manufacturer in an e-commerce supply chain, which are called bank credit and cost-sharing with third-party platform that provides a marketplace. The optimal carbon emission reduction (CER) level, selling price, and service level are investigated. It turns out that the participants' profits and environmental benefit under two financing strategies are higher than those without financing. In addition, when the commission provided by the platform is low, the manufacturer is more inclined to bank credit, and when the commission is high, it is more sensible to share CER cost with the platform. The impact of government service supervision policies on corporate decision-making is further explored. The results prove that setting an appropriate service threshold and reward-penalty factor is not only conducive to incentivizing the platform to improve service level but also beneficial to the environment and overall social welfare. This paper provides cooperation strategies for manufacturers in green financing in the e-commerce supply chain and provides policy recommendations for the government to implement e-commerce service regulation and promote CER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the restriction of sulfur content in fuel oil in the Emission Control Areas (ECAs), ships passing through ECAs have to adopt low-sulfur fuel oil (LSFO), and government will provide appropriate subsidies to shipping companies using LSFO. However, due to the different bargaining power between ports and shipping companies, it is necessary to study how the governmental subsidies affect the carriers' choices of using LSFO under different power structures. In this paper, a game model considering one terminal and two carriers is developed to study the equilibrium solutions of two carriers under different power structures (terminal-dominated game, carriers-dominated game, Nash game), and then we analyze the impacts of government subsidies on maritime supply chain. The results show that whether for terminal or carriers, being leader in the game can always bring them higher profits. With the increase of the government subsidy, the demand of the carrier using LSFO will increase while the demand of the carrier who doesn't use LSFO will decrease. High government subsidy not only reduces the profits of carriers not using LSFO but also puts the carriers more likely into the prisoner's dilemma. The total demands and social welfare are maximized under Nash game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an unqualified product recalling process in a supply chain, this paper establishes an evolutionary game model between consumer federation and manufacturer, as well as analyzes the effects of manufacturer's pricing strategy and consumer federation's supervision on the decision-making and dynamic tendency. Under this structure, the manufacturers' pricing strategies on recalls mechanism have two scenarios: the high penalty and low penalty from consumer federation. Results shows that, when the consumer federation adopts high penalty measures, there will be an ESS for consumer federation that can both minimize the cost and protect consumers' rights. Further, the probability of manufacturer adopting "recall" strategy is positively correlated with the change in the product price, and both the probability of consumer federation adopting "regulate" strategy and manufacturer adopting "recall" strategy are positively correlated with the penalty coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon emission reduction has become an inevitable trend. Under the low-carbon environment, the government has been acting as an important role in the operation and management of supply chain. This paper considers four different governmental subsidy strategies, which includes none of members is subsidized (NS Scenario), only retailer is subsidized (RS Scenario), only manufacturer is subsidized (MS Scenario) and both members are subsidized (SS Scenario). A Stackelberg game model, which incorporates both governmental regulation and consumer's awareness of carbon emission, is developed to present the pricing and emission reduction behaviors for the supply chain members as well as the subsidy policies of government under different governmental subsidy strategies, and analyze the impact of relevant coefficients on the decisions and supply chain profits. It can be concluded that subsidizing to both members is more profitable for supply chain members and government in terms of environment protection and economic development. The results provide some managerial insights for the decision-makers and policy-makers to implement sustainability initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines manufacturers' carbon emission reduction level and retailers' low‐carbon promotion effort in a low‐carbon closed‐loop supply chain (CLSC), in which a manufacturer directly collects the used‐products from consumers. Considering both the carbon emission reduction level and low‐carbon promotion effort depending on the market demands, this study investigates the optimal decisions and performances of CLSC under four different game structures, that is, one non‐cooperative structure and three cooperative structures. In the non‐cooperative structure, the manufacturer controls the carbon emission level, the collection level as well as the wholesale price, while the retailer controls the low‐carbon promotion effort and retail price. The cooperative structures consist of one‐way and two‐way cooperation. In one‐way cooperative structure, the manufacturer shares only a part of retailer's low‐carbon promotion cost. In two‐way cooperative structure, the retailer shares partial manufacturer's carbon emission reduction cost or collection cost based on the one‐way cooperative structure. It shows that the two‐way cooperative structure of the co‐op promotion and carbon emission reduction is the optimal in pricing decisions and carbon emission reduction level, as well as two‐way cooperative structure of the co‐op promotion and collection is the optimal in the collection effort. Under lower the consumer's low‐carbon preferences, the retailer agrees to share the manufacturer's collection cost. When the consumer's low‐carbon preferences are higher, the retailer agrees to share the manufacturer's carbon emission reduction cost. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 38: 143–153, 2019 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the "Internet +" era, the shipping industry, which is struggling to survive due to economic weakness and excess capacity, is also actively seeking transformation to enhance core competitiveness of enterprises. This paper embeds the evolutionary game theory in the pricing model to explore the dynamic interaction mechanism between shipping companies and freight forwarders in channel selection. The conditions for shipping companies to choose different channel strategies in the long-term dynamic evolution process are derived. Then, we apply system dynamics to simulate the evolution model, and analyzes the influence of factors such as channel preference, operating cost and perceived loss on the dynamic evolution process. It is concluded that shipping companies and forwarders have different channel choices at different development stages, and when shipping companies choose to invade online platform, forwarders are motivated to choose online channel to obtain lower freight rates. When the channel preference of forwarders is moderate, the two channels coexist; when the channel preference of forwarders is high, the final stabilization strategy evolves to only the online channel. Furthermore, the channel preference of shippers has a greater impact on the evolutionary mechanism than that of forwarders. • Studying strategic interaction between shipping companies and freight forwarders in shipping e-commerce. • Using evolutionary game theory embedded pricing model to explore dynamic channel selection of the shipping system. • Considering traditional channel and booking platform, and deriving the conditions for choosing different channels. • Analyzing channel preferences of shippers and forwarders. • Using System Dynamics to simulate mathematical models and verify theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under cap-and-trade regulation, this paper investigates the decision and coordination in the dual-channel supply chain arising out of low-carbon preference and channel substitution. From the game theoretical perspective, we develop the decision-making models of the centralized and decentralized supply chain, which consist of one manufacturer and one retailer. We design an improved revenue-sharing contract to effectively coordinate the manufacturer and retailer. The results suggestthe government make cap-and-trade regulation to reduce carbon emission efficiently andrealize coordinated development betweenthe economy and environment. In addition, the supply chaincan obtain greater profits based on the consumer's low-carbon preference. Meanwhile, the improved revenue-sharing contract leads to a Paretoimprovement of the efficiency between the manufacturer and retailer, as well as the optimal profits are related to bargaining powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the decision strategy and profit distribution of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) with retail price and emission reduction dependent demand. In the first period, the manufacturer supplies the new products to retailer and the retailer sells the new products to consumers; then the retailer remanufactures the used products and purchased the new products in the second period. Considering the consumer’s low-carbon and remanufactured preference, centralized and decentralized models consisting of one-single manufacturer and one-single retailer are proposed to investigate the optimal retail price, reduction rate and recycling rate. Through systematic comparison, the results show that each member makes decisions for self-profits maximization, which inevitably brings about double-marginal effect and affects the operating efficiency of supply chain in decentralized scenario. On the basis of Nash bargaining theory, we use the degree of satisfaction as an objective function and examine the feasibility of coordination mechanism. Finally, a numerical study is taken to investigate the impacts of low-carbon and remanufactured preference on demand as well as optimal decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reduction of carbon emissions is a world-wide concern. Many countries have implemented various policies to reduce carbon emissions, which has affected the operational decisions of enterprises in the supply chain since most carbon is emitted during the production process. In this paper, the mutual relationship between supply chain enterprise operations and government policy are considered. Governmental carbon emission tax policies are examined using the three-stage Stackelberg game model with a decentralized supply chain and the two-stage Stackelberg game model with a centralized supply chain. The optimal strategies of enterprises and governments are theorized for both types of supply chains. In the decentralized supply chain, a product's retail price and the government's carbon tax are higher than those in centralized decision-making mode. In the centralized supply chain, the stocking factor of the retailer, the profit of the supply chain and the expected social welfare of the government are higher than those in decentralized supply chain. With the increase of carbon emissions tax, the wholesale price of manufacturer and retailing price of retailer under the decentralized supply chain, as well as retailing price of retailer under centralized supply chain increase. The results indicate that the centralized supply chain is more beneficial to enterprises and government than the decentralized supply chain. By performing the comparisons of the manufacturer-dominated supply chain with retailer-dominated and no agent dominated supply chains, it is shown that both the environment performance and financial performance of supply chain are better off when the supply chain members have distributed pricing powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For encouraging the manufacturer and supplier to innovate in carbon reduction technology, the government tends to set a number of mandatory standards and some punitive measures in practice. However, research on the regulatory ability of the government and the relationship between governmental regulation and enterprises' carbon reduction technology innovation is often neglected. Thus, the bilateral interaction mechanism between the government and enterprises should be established in which enterprises and governments constantly adjust individual decisions to response to the other, so as to improve the carbon emission reduction of enterprises and the level of government regulation. We use differential game methods to study the interaction between carbon reduction technology innovation and government intervention under decentralized decision without cost sharing, decentralized decision with cost sharing and centralized decision respectively. We find that the optimal level of carbon reduction technology innovation under decentralized decision is the same as centralized situation when there is no cost sharing. Furthermore, the optimal levels of government intervention are also the same in both cases. However, the optimal level of carbon reduction technology innovation and government intervention will be improved only in the case that cost-sharing proportion reaches a certain range. Therefore, a positive interaction mechanism between carbon reduction technology innovation of enterprise and intervention of government can be established. Theoretically, our paper reveals a new perspective in the research of the relationship between government and enterprises in the process of carbon reduction technology innovation and use differential game methods to study the interaction between carbon reduction technology innovation and government intervention. In practice, this paper can help government and enterprises to form a closer cooperative relationship in reducing carbon emissions. The government should give full consideration for enterprises' actual production capacity when taking intervention measures. Meanwhile, enterprises should refer to the intervention indicators of the government when conducting carbon reduction technology innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]