Interest in reshoring, defined as the return of manufacturing and service operations from previously offshored locations to the U.S., has gained momentum recently. Yet, there is no academic evidence on the shareholder value implications of reshoring decisions. This paper analyzes the shareholder wealth effects of 37 reshoring decisions announced by U.S. firms during 2006–2015. Our results indicate that reshoring announcements result in positive abnormal stock returns. Mean (median) abnormal stock returns on reshoring announcements are 0.45% (0.29%), corresponding with a mean (median) market value change of $322.57 million ($31.60 million). Our findings imply that the benefits associated with the reshoring tend to outweigh the costs. This finding is relevant for firms faced with the decision of whether to move business activities from offshore to domestic locations. It is also of interest to policy makers who may seek to further stimulate the reshoring phenomenon.

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Remanufacturing, long perceived as an environmentally friendly initiative, is supported by a number of governments. Yet, the assumption that remanufacturing is desirable to society has never been systematically investigated. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness and eco‐efficiency of remanufacturing in the personal computer and mobile phone industries. We investigate whether remanufacturing substantially reduces the environmental impact, as measured by cumulative energy demand (CED), generated over the life cycles (LCs) of these products, and the size of any reduction. We also examine the relative eco‐efficiency of remanufacturing compared with virgin manufacturing for these two products, where eco‐efficiency includes both willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for the products as well as the energy consumed in producing the products. Our main findings are the following. One, remanufacturing is an effective way to reduce the total energy consumed during the LCs of personal computers and mobile phones, with one notable exception, when the life spans of remanufactured products are substantially shorter than the life spans of their new counterparts. Two, a remanufactured personal computer or mobile phone is not always more eco‐efficient than a corresponding new product. Three, the WTP for remanufactured personal computers and mobile phones, and consequently, their eco‐efficiencies, are a function of the prices of the correspondent new products at launch and years elapsed between launch and remanufacturing. Four, remanufactured units are sold at a discount relative to the price of new personal computers and mobile phones. Five, on the whole, the market for remanufactured mobile phones is more eco‐efficient than the market for new mobile phones. Six, the market for remanufactured computers is more eco‐efficient than the market for new computers. Lastly, because the group of remanufactured products is heterogeneous, not all remanufactured units are more eco‐efficient than the average new computer and mobile phone. We conclude with a discussion of the impact of our findings on European WEEE and WEEE‐like legislation.

AND KEYWORDS AbstractRecent literature on sustainable logistics networks points to two important questions: (i) How to spot the preferred solution(s) balancing environmental and business concerns? (ii) How to improve the understanding of the trade-offs between these two dimensions? We posit that a complete exploration of the efficient frontier and trade-offs between profitability and environmental impacts are particularly suitable to answer these two questions. In order to deal with the exponential number of basic efficient points in the frontier, we propose a formulation that performs in exponential time for the number of objective functions only. We illustrate our findings by designing a complex recycling logistics network in Germany. How to improve the understanding of the trade-offs between these two dimensions? We posit that a complete exploration of the efficient frontier and trade-offs between profitability and environmental impacts are particularly suitable to answer these two questions. In order to deal with the exponential number of basic efficient points in the frontier, we propose a formulation that performs in exponential time for the number of objective functions only. We illustrate our findings by designing a complex recycling logistics network in Germany.

We examine the shareholder wealth effects of the adoption of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA). The MSA’s Transparency in Supply Chains clause introduced new reporting requirements mandating certain firms to provide an annual statement outlining how they identify and mitigate modern slavery in their business and supply chain. An event study of stock price reactions of UK firms covered by the MSA to eight events associated with its adoption provides no evidence of abnormal stock returns. We do, however, uncover significant cross-sectional differences in stock price reactions, with results suggesting that the MSA provides a competitive advantage to firms with a demonstrated track record of addressing slavery risk. We find no effects for preregulatory corporate social responsibility disclosure levels on stock price reactions. Our findings highlight the economic value of maintaining socially responsible sourcing practices and inform the current policy debate on the importance of greater transparency in corporate supply chains. This paper was accepted by Gad Allon, operations management.