In this paper, a risk-neutral manufacturer sells a single product to a risk-neutral retailer. The retailer chooses inventories ex ante and promotional effort ex post. If the wholesale price exceeds marginal production cost, the retailer orders fewer than the joint profit-maximizing inventories....

The benefits of supply chain innovations such as quick response (QR) have been extensively investigated. This paper highlights a potentially damaging impact of QR on retailer effort. By lowering downstream inventories, QR may compromise retailer incentives to exert sales effort on a...