Long-Term Contracting: The Role of Private Information in Dynamic Supply Risk Management

Abstract

We examine the critical role of evolving private information in managing supply risk. The problem features a dyadic channel where a dominant buyer operates a multiperiod inventory system with lost sales and fixed cost. He replenishes from a supplier, whose private state of production is vulnerable to random shocks and evolves dynamically over time. We characterize the optimal inventory policy with a simple semi-stationary structure; it distorts order quantity for limiting information rent only in the initial period; the optimal payment compensates for production cost in every period but concedes real information rent only in the initial period. These properties allow us to derive an easy-to-implement revenue sharing contract that facilitates ex ante strategic planning and ex post dynamic execution. The work advances our understanding on when and how to use private information in dynamic risk management.