Consumption Coupons, Consumption Probability and Inventory Optimization: An Improved Minimum-Cost Maximum-Flow Approach

Abstract

The issuance of consumption coupons during the epidemic period to stimulate the economy must take full account of the level of probabilistic consumption and inventory optimization. In this paper, an improved minimum-cost maximum-flow model is constructed to dynamically adjust the inventory capacity of node enterprises with the change of probabilistic consumption level, and three scenarios are simulated by numerical assumptions. The results show that: (1) The model can better solve the problem of consumption coupons, probabilistic consumption and inventory optimization; (2) Consumer welfare remains unchanged, the largest number of government consumption coupons is issued, and the number of enterprise inventories reaches the lowest; (3) Enterprise inventories are minimized with different decisions on consumer probability consumption, and the government’s issuance of consumption coupons and the satisfaction of consumer demand have reached a dynamic balance. Corresponding suggestions are put forward, hoping to better help the government to implement the consumption coupons policy to stimulate the economy.