| In recent years, the environmental problems and resource problems caused by the development of economy are two hot spots in the world. Thereinto, the environmental pollution and resource waste caused by the production, consumption and disposal of material products are particularly serious. Due to its economic, environmental and social benefits, remanufacturing is favored by governments and manufacturing firms.To protect the environment and develop circular economy, governments issue some policies to promote the development of remanufacturing. These policies include remanufacturing subsidy policy (RSP) and carbon tax policy (CTP). To pursue maximal social welfare, governments need to pick the optimal policy from RSP and CTP. To implement remanufacturing, manufacturers need to supply used products continuously.Manufacturers always collect used products through trade-in services and third-party recycling. Though third-party recycling can help manufacturing collect more used products, it may also compete with manufacturers’ trade-in service which may reduce the trade-in demand, thus manufacturers need to decide whether or not to authorize a third-party to collect their used products. With the vigorous development of e-commerce, some e-commerce giants operating online sales platforms come forth, such as Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, JD.com, Gome.com.cn and Suning.com. To hold old customers and promote sales, these B2C platforms offer trade-in service. Unlike traditional trade-in service, B2C platforms pay trade-in rebates by the payment of gift card (GC) or cash card (CC), where GC can only be redeemed in self-run stores and CC can be redeemed in self-run stores and third-party stores. Thus, B2C platforms need to pick the optimal payment from GC and CC. Moreover, the development of e-commerce has also cultivated consumers online shopping habits, thus more and more traditional retailers are operating online sales channels to survive. Among them, some retailers selling durable products always offer trade-in service to entice replacement consumers to repeat the purchase. In practice, these retailers have three trade-in channel choices: the first is that retailers offer offline trade-in service (OFC); the second is that retailers offer online trade-in service (ONC); the third is that retailers offer online and offline trade-in service (DBC). Thus. retailers with online and offline sales channels need to pick the optimal trade-in channel choice from OFC, ONC and DBC.Based on the above issues of governments and firms in the context of remanufacturing, the purpose of this thesis can be carried out from the follow ing four aspects: (1) we first study the optimal strategies of a manufacturer and a retailer under RSP and CTP, then study the government’s optimal unit remanufactured product subsidy and unit carbon tax under RSP and CTP, and finally explore which policy is better for the society; (2) we study a manufacturer’s and a third-party’s optimal strategies under NA (No-Authorizing) and A (Authorizing), and then explore which choice is better for the manufacturer; (3) we study a B2C platform’s and a third-party seller’s optimal strategies under GC and CC, and then explore which payment is better for the B2C platform. Moreover, we take sales effort into account in the extension; (4)we study the optimal price and trade-in rebate strategies of a retailer with online and offline sales channels under OFC, ONC and DBC, and then explore which trade-in channel choice is better for the retailer.Our paper investigates the government’s optimal policy and firms’ optimal strategy in the context of remanufacturing through theoretical models, parameters analysis and numerical examples, and presents some managerial insights as follows.First, the manufacturer under RSP should improve the production of remanufactured products and reduce the production of new products, while the manufacturer under CTP should reduce the production of new products and improve(reduce) the production of remanufactured products if the remanufactured product’s emissions intensity is relative low (high). Moreover, RSP makes the retailer worse off and benefits the manufacturer and the whole supply chain, while CTP makes the manufacturer and the retailer worse off. Interestingly, CTP is not always better than RSP to curb carbon emissions. Most important, if the environmental damage coefficient is relatively small, RSP is the better choice for the government; otherwise, CTP is the better choice.Second, when the durability parameter of the used product is relatively small, there is competition between the third-party’s collection activity and the manufacturer’s trade-in service. Moreover, the size relationship between the optimal trade-in rebate under NA and A depends on the magnitude of the durability parameter of the used product and unit trade-in subsidy. If durability parameter of the used product is relatively large, A is the better choice for the manufacturer; otherwise, NA is the better choice except for the case when the unit salvage of the used product is relatively large and the unit trade-in subsidy is relatively small.Third, the B2C platform may set a relatively large (small) trade-in rebate for used products with relatively low (high) actual residual value. Moreover, tlhe B2C platform may launch sales effort for self-run store or third-party store, and can take a fiee riding of the third-party seller’s sales effort. However, sales effort of the two firms are not always better for the two firms. If the B2C platform can obtain more sales profit from self-run store than that from third-party store and consumers aren’t sufficiently like CC relative to GC, GC is the optimal payment; otherwise, CC is the better choice for the B2C platform.Fourth, the trade-in channel choices do not affect the optimal product price, and the size relationship among the optimal trade-in rebates under OFC, ONC and DBC depends on the magnitude of the consumers’ waiting psychological cost of online shopping and the unit shipping cost. Interestingly, under some conditions, the optimal trade-in demand under OFC or ONC is larger than that under DBC. Moreover, each trade-in channel choice may be the best choice for replacement consumers. Most important, if the unit shipping cost is relatively small, ONC is the best choice for the retailer: and if the unit shipping cost is relatively medium. DBC is the best choice;otherwise, OFC is the best choice.The thesis focuses on the government’s optimal policy, firms’ optimal collection strategies, optimal trade-in strategies of B2C platform and retailers with online and offline sales channels. And our results provide theoretical and practical insights for the government of issue optimal remanufacturing policy, and also serve as a guide for firms to determine optimal strategies of remanufacturing, collection and trade-in. |
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