The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of retailers and assigning it to an intermediary … incentive problems associated with retailers' inventory control and thereby improve the intertemporal allocation of inventory …. Adding an intermediary as a new link in a supply chain is also shown to reduce total inventory, to make shipments from the …

The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of competitive or exclusive retailers and assigning it … because doing so solves incentive distortions that arise when retailers have to allocate inventory across sales periods, and … thus allows for better intertemporal price discrimination. Assigning inventory control to a manufacturer is also shown to …

likely to occur and is greater in size in supply chains in which inventory control is centralized rather than decentralized …

The paper shows that taking inventory control out of the hands of competitive of exclusive retailers and assigning it … because doing so solves incentive distortions that arise when retailers have to allocate inventory across sales periods, and … thus allows for better intertemporal price discrimination. Assigning inventory control to a manufacturer is also shown to …