Who Should Finance the Supply Chain? Impact of Credit Ratings on Supply Chain Decisions

Problem description: We study the impact of credit ratings on operational and financial decisions of a supply chain with a supplier and a retailer interacting via an early payment discount contract. The retailer has a single opportunity to order a product from the supplier to satisfy future uncertain demand. Both the retailer and supplier are capital constrained, and the retailer can use both short-term bank loans and trade credits for his financing needs, while the supplier can use short-term bank loans and/or the retailers early payment. We analyze for all relevant operational decisions (wholesale price, trade credit rates, bank loans, and order quantity) for capital-constrained firms. Academic/practical relevance: We add a framework on who should finance inventories, and at what rates, in the presence of differential credit ratings of the supply chain parties. Methodology: Within a modified selling to the newsvendor Stackelberg game with the supplier as the leader, we derive the equilibrium trade credit rates, wholesale price, bank loans, and order quantity. Results: We show there exists a threshold such that if the supplier’s credit rating is above it, then the supplier offers trade credits with zero interest rate and the retailer uses trade credits only. Otherwise, the supplier sets a positive rate, which motivates the retailer to combine trade credits and bank loans. The supplier always benefits from working with good rating retailers. A retailer prefers to work with suppliers outside the supplier’s credit rating hole (a finite set of ratings) over suppliers with ratings within the range. Managerial implications: We provide insights on who should finance supply chain inventories and at what rates when there are differential credit rating between the supplier and retailer. We provide a plausible explanation for the practice of large and good credit rating retailers maintaining a small cash ratio and working with small suppliers in developing countries. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2017.0669 . This paper has been accepted for the Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Special Issue on Interface of Finance, Operations, and Risk Management.