Trade Finance Contracts for Small-Business Suppliers

小型企业供应商的贸易融资合同

• 批准号: 1755263
• 负责人: Diwakar Gupta
• 金额: $ 21.79万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1755263&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Trade; Finance; Contracts; Small; Business

Web platforms are transforming the way small businesses (suppliers) sell their products and obtain trade finance. Specifically, small businesses, the engines of job creation in the U.S., often sell their products on web platforms (retailers) such as Amazon, E-bay, and Spun and may obtain financing either directly from the retailer (via either a loan or a purchase commitment) or crowd-funding options such as KickStarter, IndeGoGo, and Crowdfunder. This research will develop new mathematical models to evaluate emerging trade-finance options including (1) direct financing, (2) purchase commitment, and (3) crowd-funding, from the viewpoint of small businesses, retailers, and supply chains. Specifically, this research project seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the optimal operational and financial decisions for suppliers and retailers under each finance option? 2. Which option is superior for small-business suppliers? 3. Which option has the potential to achieve maximum supply chain efficiency? 4. Does the availability of third-party credit improve supply chain's efficiency? (This is motivated by the fact that third-party lenders (e.g., banks) are often more willing to offer loans if suppliers receive some financing from either retailers or crowd sources.) Trade finance is important because small businesses often find it difficult to obtain commercial loans to support their operations; small businesses account for 60 to 80 percent of all US jobs; U.S. Census Bureau reports that e-commerce has steadily gained momentum, increasing from about 0.8 percent of total retail sales in the first quarter of 2000 [approximately $5.8 billion of $740 billion] to 5.9 percent in the third quarter of 2013 [approximately $67 billion of $1.14 trillion]; crowd-funding platforms raised $2.7 billion in 2012 across more than 1 million individual campaigns globally; and the JOBS Act is expected to accelerate the pace of crowd-funding by permitting companies to participate in equity-based, online crowd-funding. The results of this research will inform suppliers and retailers which financing options are best for them and for the supply chain as a whole. The research will help train highly qualified personnel by offering research opportunities for doctoral and undergraduate students in engineering. This research project will lead to (1) new models for establishing optimal trade-finance and operations' strategies for economically significant small-business suppliers, (2) new insights about the optimal production-policy structure under different finance options, and (3) economic models for the crowd-funding paradigm. These methods will comprise stochastic comparisons, dynamic programs, equilibrium analysis of single and multi-period games, and statistical analysis of crowd-funding data (e.g., mixed-effects models). The underlying multi-period stochastic optimization problems are challenging because the structure of an optimal production-policy is not known. Moreover, no previous work has investigated the retailer's problem of choosing either the interest rate or the commitment rate in a multi-period setting. Similarly, there is limited research on modeling the decision problems faced by suppliers who attempt to raise capital via crowd-funding - e.g., how much price discount to offer to contributors. By modeling emerging trade-finance paradigms, this research will open new areas of inquiry for other researchers. The principal investigator's efforts will also help small-business suppliers make better trade-finance and operational decisions.

网络平台正在改变小企业(供应商)销售产品和获得贸易融资的方式。具体地说，小企业是美国创造就业机会的引擎，它们通常在亚马逊、易趣和SPUND等网络平台(零售商)上销售产品，并可能直接从零售商那里获得融资(通过贷款或购买承诺)或通过Kickstarter、Indegogo和Crowdfunder等众筹方式获得融资。这项研究将开发新的数学模型来评估新兴的贸易融资选择，包括(1)直接融资，(2)购买承诺，和(3)从小企业、零售商和供应链的角度进行众筹。具体地说，本研究项目试图回答以下问题：1.在每个融资方案下，供应商和零售商的最优运营和财务决策是什么？2.哪种方案对小企业供应商更好？3.哪种方案有可能实现供应链最大效率？4.第三方信贷的可用性是否提高了供应链的效率？(这是因为，如果供应商从零售商或大众渠道获得一些融资，第三方贷款人(例如银行)往往更愿意提供贷款。)贸易融资很重要，因为小企业经常难以获得商业贷款来支持其运营；小企业创造了美国60%至80%的就业机会；美国人口普查局报告称，电子商务的势头稳步增强，占零售总额的比例从2000年第一季度的约0.8%[7400亿美元中的约58亿美元]增加到2013年第三季度的5.9%[1.14万亿美元中约670亿美元]；2012年，众筹平台在全球100多万个单独活动中筹集了27亿美元；就业法案预计将通过允许公司参与基于股权的在线众筹来加快众筹的步伐。这项研究的结果将告诉供应商和零售商，哪些融资方案对他们和整个供应链来说都是最好的。这项研究将通过为工程学博士和本科生提供研究机会，帮助培养高素质的人才。这一研究项目将导致(1)为具有经济意义的小企业供应商建立最优贸易融资和运营战略的新模型，(2)关于不同融资选择下的最优生产政策结构的新见解，以及(3)众筹范式的经济模型。这些方法将包括随机比较、动态规划、单期和多期博弈的均衡分析以及众筹数据的统计分析(例如，混合效应模型)。由于最优生产策略的结构未知，潜在的多周期随机优化问题是具有挑战性的。此外，以前还没有研究过零售商在多周期环境下选择利率或承诺率的问题。同样，对试图通过众筹筹集资金的供应商所面临的决策问题建模的研究也很有限--例如，向贡献者提供多少价格折扣。通过对新兴的贸易融资范式进行建模，这项研究将为其他研究人员开辟新的研究领域。首席调查员的努力还将帮助小企业供应商做出更好的贸易融资和运营决策。