Cooperation and profit allocation in distribution chains

We study the coordination of actions and the allocation of profit in supply chains under decentralized control in which a single supplier supplies several retailers with goods for replenishment of stocks. The goal of the supplier and the retailers is to maximize their individual profits. Since the outcome under decentralized control is inefficient, cooperation among firms by means of coordination of actions may improve the individual profits. Cooperation is studied by means of cooperative game theory. Among others we show that the corresponding games are balanced and we propose a stable solution concept for these games. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.