题    目：Centralized Control and Decentralized Financing: Incentives in Supply Chains

嘉　宾：朱阳 教授 长江商学院

主持人：曾智宇 助理教授 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时　间：2026年11月10日（周二）10:00-11:30

地　点：上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院包兆龙图书馆A503

内容简介：

Supply chain partners frequently finance each other’s operations, even when the focal firm is not financially constrained. We study how financing allocation affects incentive provision in a principal–agent setting with non-contractible effort and limited liability. Treating the assignment of financing responsibility for operating assets as a design variable, we show that requiring the effort-taking agent to finance these assets can expand the set of implementable outcomes. The mechanism works through limited liability: agent financing increases the agent’s downside exposure, relaxing the limited liability constraint and strengthening incentives. Thus, financing allocation functions as a contractual instrument rather than merely a funding decision. We further show that the principal may optimally require the agent to finance a larger asset base than would arise under contractible effort, thereby strengthening incentives. Improvements in operational visibility do not fully substitute for financial structure, and financing allocation continues to affect incentive provision under limited liability. In this setting, partner financing can outperform both vertical integration and outsourcing. These results highlight financing allocation's distinct role in supply chain design by shaping incentives, even when operational control is centralized.

演讲人简介：

Leon Yang Zhu is a Professor of Operations Management at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. Before joining CKGSB, Leon was a tenured full professor at the Data Sciences and Operations Department of the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering and his M.A. in Economics from the University of Florida, and his bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before joining Marshall, he was a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Zhu has been accepted by or published in various academic journals, including the Academy of Management Review, American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, MIS Quarterly, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management, and Rand Journal of Economics. He also serves or has served as Associate Editor or Senior Editor for Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Production and Operations Management, among others.

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