Opening Up New Supply Chains.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zeidel ML
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7281713 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Opening Up New Supply Chains.
Zeidel Mark L ML Kirk Carolyn C Linville-Engler Ben B
The New England journal of medicine 20200506 21
Similar Datasets
Project description:We study the role of global supply chains in the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on GDP growth using a multi-sector quantitative framework implemented on 64 countries. We discipline the labor supply shock across sectors and countries using the fraction of work in the sector that can be done from home, interacted with the stringency with which countries imposed lockdown measures. One quarter of the total model-implied real GDP decline is due to transmission through global supply chains. However, "renationalization" of global supply chains does not in general make countries more resilient to pandemic-induced contractions in labor supply. This is because eliminating reliance on foreign inputs increases reliance on the domestic inputs, which are also disrupted due to nationwide lockdowns. In fact, trade can insulate a country imposing a stringent lockdown from the pandemic-shock, as its foreign inputs are less disrupted than its domestic ones. Finally, unilateral lifting of the lockdowns in the largest economies can contribute as much as 2.5% to GDP growth in some of their smaller trade partners.
| S-EPMC8633421 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The seafood supply chain is often long and fragmented, and slavery is a tenacious problem. The vast majority of workers are engaged in the early stages of production and often employed through subcontracts or brokers. We hypothesized that food companies could identify risks and implement improvements by adding a labor safety dimension to their tracking and traceability systems. We designed a five-point framework-the Labor Safe Screen-and tested it for 118 products. The framework combines the use of technology in existing platforms with the collection of industry data and authoritative human rights data. Eighteen food companies used three or more components of the framework and systematically documented their supply chains, engaged suppliers, and cross-checked results. The companies were able to identify areas where working conditions met minimum principles, were unknown, or were inadequate. Three companies also incorporated direct worker feedback to focus resources and improve working conditions. We conclude that food companies can effectively and efficiently assess and reduce risks of forced labor in seafood supply chains-not to claim "no slavery" but to greatly improve their awareness of the labor conditions in the making of the products they trade and to identify feasible targets for further diligence and remedies.
| S-EPMC6059758 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Supply chain complexity is perceived to exacerbate the supply disruptions or shocks experienced by a city. Here, we calculate two network measures of supply chain complexity based on the relative number-horizontal complexity-and relative strength-vertical complexity-of a city's suppliers. Using a large dataset of more than 1 million annual supply flows to 69 major cities in the United States for 2012-2015, we show that a trade-off pattern between horizontal and vertical complexity tends to characterize the architecture of urban supply networks. This architecture shapes the resistance of cities to supply chain shocks. We find that a city experiences less intense shocks, on average, as supplier relative diversity (horizontal complexity) increases for more technologically sophisticated products, which may serve as a mechanism for buffering cities against supply chain shocks. These results could help cities anticipate and manage their supply chain risks.
| S-EPMC10052311 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Global supply chains play a critical role in many of the most pressing environmental stresses and social struggles identified by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Responding to calls from the global community, companies are adopting a variety of voluntary practices to improve the environmental and/or social management of their suppliers' activities. We develop a global survey of 449 publicly listed companies in the food, textile, and wood-products sectors with annual reports in English to provide insight into how the private sector contributes to advancing the SDGs via such sustainable-sourcing practices. We find that while 52% of companies use at least one sustainable-sourcing practice, these practices are limited in scope; 71% relates to only one or a few input materials and 60.5% apply to only first-tier suppliers. We also find that sustainable-sourcing practices typically address a small subset of the sustainability challenges laid out by the SDGs, primarily focusing on labor rights and compliance with national laws. Consistent with existing hypotheses, companies that face consumer and civil society pressure are associated with a significantly higher probability of adopting sustainable-sourcing practices. Our findings highlight the opportunities and limitations of corporate sustainable-sourcing practices in addressing the myriad sustainability challenges facing our world today.
| S-EPMC5834693 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This article investigates how the shift from food-away-from-home and towards food-at-home at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the U.S. egg industry. We find that the pandemic increased retail and farm-gate prices for table eggs by approximately 141% and 182%, respectively. In contrast, prices for breaking stock eggs—which are primarily used in foodservice and restaurants—fell by 67%. On April 3, 2020, the FDA responded by issuing temporary exemptions from certain food safety standards for breaking stock egg producers seeking to sell into the retail table egg market. We find that this regulatory change rapidly pushed retail, farm-gate, and breaking stock prices towards their long-run pre-pandemic equilibrium dynamics. The pandemic reduced premiums for credence attributes, including cage-free, vegetarian-fed, and organic eggs, by as much as 34%. These premiums did not fully recover following the return to more “normal” price dynamics, possibly signaling that willingness-to-pay for animal welfare and environmental sustainability have fallen as consumers seek to meet basic needs during the pandemic. Finally, in spite of widespread claims of price gouging, we do not find that the pandemic (or the subsequent FDA regulatory changes) had a meaningful impact on the marketing margin for table eggs sold at grocery stores.
| S-EPMC9758591 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ensuring a more equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide is an effective strategy to control global pandemics and support economic recovery. We analyze the socioeconomic effects - defined as health gains, lockdown-easing effect, and supply-chain rebuilding benefit - of a set of idealized COVID-19 vaccine distribution scenarios. We find that an equitable vaccine distribution across the world would increase global economic benefits by 11.7% ($950 billion per year), compared to a scenario focusing on vaccinating the entire population within vaccine-producing countries first and then distributing vaccines to non-vaccine-producing countries. With limited doses among low-income countries, prioritizing the elderly who are at high risk of dying, together with the key front-line workforce who are at high risk of exposure is projected to be economically beneficial (e.g., 0.9%~3.4% annual GDP in India). Our results reveal how equitable distributions would cascade more protection of vaccines to people and ways to improve vaccine equity and accessibility globally through international collaboration.
| S-EPMC10030081 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Supply chains enable the flow of goods and services within economic systems. When mapped for the entire economy and geographic locations of a country, supply chains form a spatial web of interactions among suppliers and buyers. One way to characterize supply chains is through multiregional input-output linkages. Using a multiregional input-output dataset, we build the multilayer network of supply chains in the United States. Together with a network cascade model, the multilayer network is used to explore the propagation of economic shocks along intranational supply chains. We find that the effect of economic shocks, measured using the avalanche size or total number of collapsed nodes, varies widely depending on the geographic location and economic sector of origin of a shock. The response of the supply chains to shocks reveals a threshold-like behavior. Below a certain failure or fragility level, the avalanche size increases relatively quickly for any node in the network. Based on this result, we find that the most fragile regions tend to be located in the central United States, which are regions that tend to specialize in food production and manufacturing. The most fragile layers are chemical and pharmaceutical products, services and food-related products, which are all sectors that have been disrupted by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States. The fragility risk, measured by the intersection of the fragility level of a node and its exposure to shocks, varies across regions and sectors. This suggests that interventions aiming to make the supply-chain network more robust to shocks are likely needed at multiple levels of network aggregation.
| S-EPMC7509503 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To guarantee the sustainable development of the biomass raw material supply chain, researchers are increasingly focusing on the issue of information asymmetry between biomass power plants and upstream supply chain members. This paper investigates the optimal information sharing strategy for a biomass power plant where farmers choose whether to encroach on the biomass feedstock supply. Using a game theory model, we analyze eight different information sharing scenarios, and the results show that when the encroachment occurs in supply chain channels, information sharing can significantly increase the profits of the entire supply chain. In this case, the power plant should share its demand information with all upstream players to promote the overall benefit of the supply chain. In contrast, when the power plant shares its information only with the middleman, it can maximize its profits, which, however, may not be conducive to the long-term stability of the supply chain. Furthermore, surprisingly, in the absence of channel encroachment, the power plant sharing information with upstream members may harm their profits. This suggests that power plants may need to consider the scope of information sharing more carefully when the farmers choose not to encroach. Finally, we also examine the impact of channel competition intensity on information sharing strategies, and find that when channel competition intensity is low, transparent demand information helps the power plant maximize expected returns. However, in a highly competitive market environment, the power plant should carefully handle information sharing with farmers to avoid damaging their profits.
| S-EPMC11414914 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Product trade plays an increasing role in relocating production and the associated air pollution impact among sectors and regions. While a comprehensive depiction of atmospheric pollution redistribution through trade chains is missing, which may hinder targeted clean air cooperation among sectors and regions. Here, we combined five state-of-the-art models from physics, economy, and epidemiology to track the anthropogenic fine particle matters (PM2.5) related premature mortality along the supply chains within China in 2017. Our results highlight the key sectors that affect PM2.5-related mortality from both production and consumption perspectives. The consumption-based effects from food, light industry, equipment, construction, and services sectors, caused 2-22 times higher deaths than those from a production perspective and totally contributed 63% of the national total. From a cross-boundary perspective, 25.7% of China's PM2.5-related deaths were caused by interprovincial trade, with the largest transfer occurring from the central and northern regions to well-developed east coast provinces. Capital investment dominated the cross-boundary effect (56% of the total) by involving substantial equipment and construction products, which greatly rely on product exports from regions with specific resources. This supply chain-based analysis provides a comprehensive quantification and may inform more effective joint-control efforts among associated regions and sectors from a health risk perspective.
| S-EPMC10091032 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the last few decades, the emergence of mid-scale, intermediated marketing channels that fall between commodity and direct markets has attracted growing interest from scholars for their potential to preserve small and mid-sized farms while scaling up alternative agrifood sourcing. When such mid-scale supply chains are formed among multiple business partners with shared ethics or values related to the qualities of the food and the business relationships along the supply chain, they may be termed "values-based supply chains (VBSCs)." Most of the research on VBSCs to date has relied primarily on a case study approach that investigates the performance of VBSCs from the perspective of VBSC founders or leaders. In contrast, this research seeks out the perspectives of farmers who participate in VBSCs. A nationwide farmer survey conducted in 2017 offers original insights on farmer motivations for participating in VBSCs and how they are being used by farmers relative to other marketing channels. We find that VBSCs serve farms of all sizes. Overall, smaller farms were more likely to market a higher percentage of overall sales through their VBSC and more likely to rank their VBSC as one of the top three marketing channels in their portfolio. But it was the larger farms that were more likely to perceive VBSC-specific benefits. Our findings confirm that while there is a limited volume of product that such regional supply chains can currently handle, farmers view VBSCs as a valuable marketing option that aligns with their own values and preserves their product's identity.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10460-021-10255-5.
| S-EPMC8382098 | biostudies-literature