This paper examines a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a retailer and a manufacturer under two-way information asymmetry, in which the two actors have private demand and cost information, respectively. In response to the uncertainty caused by information asymmetry, a robust optimization approach is used to model the risk-averse behavior of the enterprises in the game. We incorporate an information transmission mechanism by which the dominated enterprise would obtain partial private information contained in the decision of the dominant enterprise through information inference. We explore the interaction between decision timing and inference, then investigate full and partial information sharing strategies to reveal the critical roles of information flow in supply chain operations. The results illustrate the impact of demand and cost information gaps on enterprise operations, where the information gap is defined as the difference between the worst-case bound and the actual value of the demand and the cost, respectively. In addition, enterprises may not prefer sharing information when the difference between the two information gaps is large or the demand is small. Hence we propose some subsidy strategies for inducing information sharing which can achieve win-win situations. Moreover, moving first and not sharing information is a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in most situations when not considering inference. We illustrate how the equilibrium can be changed through subsidy and inference, then provide mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium for specific situations. The results also indicate moving first is not always advantageous in the game. This depends on the follower’s information gap, inference level, and information sharing strategy. Finally, in an extension, we discuss information inference costs and the impact of channel encroachment, and we validate our results based on a signaling game.

中文翻译：

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决策时间、信息推理和信息共享：具有双向信息不对称的强大供应链游戏


本文研究了双向信息不对称下由零售商和制造商组成的两级供应链，其中两个参与者分别拥有私人需求和成本信息。为了应对信息不对称造成的不确定性，使用稳健的优化方法来模拟游戏中企业的风险规避行为。我们纳入了一种信息传输机制，通过该机制，被支配企业将通过信息推理获得支配企业决策中包含的部分私人信息。我们探索决策时间和推理之间的相互作用，然后研究完整和部分信息共享策略，以揭示信息流在供应链运营中的关键作用。结果说明了需求和成本信息差距对企业运营的影响，其中信息差距分别定义为最坏情况边界与需求和成本的实际值之间的差额。此外，当两个信息差距之间的差异较大或需求较小时，企业可能不喜欢共享信息。因此，我们提出了一些补贴策略，以促进信息共享，从而实现双赢。此外，在不考虑推理的大多数情况下，先移动而不共享信息是一种纯粹的策略纳什均衡。我们说明了如何通过补贴和推理来改变均衡，然后为特定情况提供混合策略纳什均衡。结果还表明，在游戏中，先移动并不总是有利的。这取决于追随者的信息差距、推理水平和信息共享策略。 最后，在扩展中，我们讨论了信息推理成本和信道侵占的影响，并根据信令博弈验证了我们的结果。