Optimal pricing for new and remanufactured products

This work investigates the optimal pricing of new and remanufactured products using a model of consumer preferences based on extensive experimentation. The experimental investigation reveals two distinct segments of consumers. One segment is relatively indifferent between new and remanufactured products and displays high sensitivity to price discounts. The second segment shows strong preferences for new products—with an accompanying aversion to remanufactured products—and realtively low sensitivity to price discounts. The pricing analysis examines several scenarios involving a new product manufacturer, ranging from a simple monopolist scenario to a more complex scenario involving competition with third-party remanufacturers. In contrast to the usual finding that new product prices should decrease when competitive remanufactured products enter the market, the introduction of market segments reveals a robust finding across all scenarios: when remanufactured products enter the market, the optimal price of the new product should increase. Through appropriate pricing of new products, the OEM can mitigate the effects of cannibalization and increase profitability.     

企业集团逆向回收渠道选择策略研究

随着环保意识和可持续发展意识的增强,废旧产品的回收再利用越来越受到人们的广泛关注。一个具有旧产品回收再造功能的企业集团存在两种逆向回收渠道结构:一是上游回收模式,即上游子公司直接从消费者手中回收旧产品;二是下游回收模式,即下游子公司直接从消费者手中回收旧产品。研究结果表明,上游回收模式优于下游回收模式,而且,在上游回收模式下,集团的利润、旧产品回收率均随着下游产品替代程度的增强而增大。上游回收模式也优于不具有旧产品回收再造功能的渠道结构。     

Green consumer behaviour: an experimental analysis of willingness to pay for remanufactured products

Products' end‐of‐life management has recently become a critical business issue. One of the possible end‐of‐life strategies is remanufacturing, which can provide competitive advantages through material and energy savings. Beyond industrial organization challenges, there is a question about the interest of developing a green marketing strategy for remanufactured products. Indeed, remanufactured products can be considered as green products since their industrial process has environmental benefits. Our paper asks whether consumers are willing to pay for remanufactured products, especially when they are informed that these products are ‘green’. We use experimental auctions to elicit consumers' WTP for specific characteristics of remanufactured products. Our study indicates that consumers tend to value the remanufactured product less than the conventional one unless they are informed about their respective environmental impacts. We find no evidence that consumers are willing to pay a premium for the green (i.e. remanufactured) product. However, providing environmental information to consumers has an effect on their WTP for the conventional product: they generally decrease significantly their WTP for the conventional (and thus most polluting) product. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Determinants of consumer demand for circular economy products. A case for reuse and remanufacturing for sustainable development

We investigate determinants of consumer demand for circular (reused and remanufactured) products. Based on exploratory choice-based conjoint experiments with a sample of 800 adults in the United Kingdom, we examine two types of premium segment electronic appliances: a mobile phone and a robot vacuum cleaner. We find that consumers prefer partly circulated products over fully or not at all circulated products and that circular products can likely successfully enter the existing market at the retail price of a new product. Interestingly, circular products compete for market share primarily with new products, leaving the market share of second-hand options less affected. The results show a promising path for firms considering a transition to circular business models.     

基于渠道竞争的双渠道供应链低碳协调策略

针对由一个制造商和一个零售商构成的双渠道供应链,将渠道竞争和产品的低碳性能引入消费者的非线性需求中,通过构建制造商为主导者的Stackelberg博弈模型,对比分析了分散决策和集中决策下的最优定价、碳排放水平和成员利润,并采用价格折扣-成本分摊契约实现了供应链的协调。研究结果表明:在分散决策和集中决策两种情况下,渠道竞争程度的增加均会造成碳排放水平、供应链利润和消费者效用的降低;集中决策下的直销价格大于分散决策下的直销价格,集中决策下的零售价格小于分散决策下的零售价格。最后通过算例验证了以上结论和协调机制的有效性。     

Fiscal centralization versus decentralization: Growth and welfare effects of spillovers, Leviathan taxation, and capital mobility

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with spillovers of public goods, Leviathan taxation, and mobile capital to examine the relative merits of centralized and decentralized fiscal systems for economic growth and social welfare. We show that a decentralized system dominates a centralized system in terms of economic growth; however, the difference in social welfare between a decentralized and a centralized system is non-monotonic and displays a hump-shaped relationship with respect to capital mobility. Since higher capital mobility induces stronger tax competition, this finding implies that there is an optimal degree of tax competition; some tax competition is desirable, but fierce tax competition may be harmful. We also show that there is a critical level of spillovers of public goods above which centralization dominates decentralization in terms of social welfare, as in previous studies; however, if spillovers are below this critical level, capital mobility also matters in the welfare comparison between centralized and decentralized systems.     

Centralized and decentralized provision of public goods

We model the trade-off between centralized and decentralized decision making on the provision of local public goods. Decisions are influenced by spillover effects and differences in jurisdictional size. Centralized decisions are made in a legislature of locally elected representatives, and this creates a conflict of interest between citizens in different jurisdictions. The legislature can be self-interested or benevolent and this can result in either efficient, excessive, or misallocative provision of public goods. The form of centralized decision making has a significant influence on the incentives for centralizing decision making.     

Marketing Channels and the Durable Goods Monopolist: Renting versus Selling Reconsidered

Research on durable goods has shown that because of a time inconsistency problem, a monopolist manufacturer prefers to rent rather than sell its product. We reexamine the relative profitability of renting versus selling from a marketing perspective. In particular, using a simple linear demand formulation, we assume a durable goods monopolist has to use downstream intermediaries to market its product. In contrast to the case of an integrated monopolist, we find that when the monopolist has to rely on intermediaries, then it prefers to go through an intermediary that sells rather than one that rents its product. Similarly, the intermediary that sells the product is more profitable than the intermediary that rents the product. However, if the monopolist can commit to a set of prices, then the intermediary that rents is more profitable than the intermediary that sells.     

Reviewing Oates' insights in a repeated game setting

This paper analyzes the optimal assignment of public good policies to layers of a federal system in a repeated game setting. Under a centralized regime, public goods are financed jointly across regions, and a federal legislature decides on the regional quantities. Under a decentralized regime, public goods are financed locally, and governments play a non-cooperative provision game. We find that a centralized (decentralized) regime is more likely to provide the efficient public good policies in case spillovers are small (large). Received: September 2003, Accepted: October 2004 JEL Classification: H11, H41 I wish to thank Clemens Fuest, Anke Kessler, Christoph Lülfesmann, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on this paper. Financial support by the DFG (SPP 1142) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Manufacturing and Rural Economies in the United States: The Role of Nondurable Producers, Labor Costs and State Taxes

This paper investigates the preferences of manufacturers in deciding whether to locate in metropolitan or nonmetropolitan (rural) areas. Using 1997 state-level data and OLS regression estimation, it was determined that nondurable goods manufacturers prefer rural areas, while durable goods manufacturers are indifferent as to area. However, both sets of manufacturers prefer to locate in larger states. Wage rates are not significant in the regressions, while durable manufacturers appear sensitive to state taxes. Some policy conclusions for local economic developers are derived from these findings.     

Remaining life estimation of used components in consumer products: Life cycle data analysis by Weibull and artificial neural networks

Environmental awareness and legislative pressures have made manufacturers responsible for the take-back and end-of-life treatment of their products. To competitively exploit these products, one option is to incorporate used components in “new” or remanufactured products. However, this option is partly limited by a firm's ability to assess the reliability of used components. A comprehensive two-step approach is proposed. The first stage phase statistically analyzes the behavior of components for reuse. A well-known reliability assessment method, the Weibull analysis, is applied to the time-to-failure data to assess the mean life of components. In the second phase, the degradation and condition monitoring data are analyzed by developing an artificial neural network (ANN) model. The advantages of this approach over traditional approaches employing multiple regression analysis are highlighted with empirical data from a consumer product. Finally, the Weibull analysis and the ANN model are then integrated to assess the remaining useful life of components for reuse. This is a critical advance in sustainable management of supply chains since it allows for a better understanding of not only service requirements of product, but the remaining life in a product and hence its suitability for reuse or remanufacture. Future work should assess: (1) reduction in downtime of process equipment through the implementation of this technique as a means to better manage preventative maintenance; (2) reduce field failure of remanufactured product; (3) selling-service strategy through implementation of the proposed methodology.     

Remanufacturing for the Circular Economy: An Examination of Consumer Switching Behavior

For the circular economy to be tenable, consumers need to not only return products after use, but also purchase products that are remanufactured. However, research finds that consumers have a poor opinion of remanufactured products and are typically not prepared to adopt them. Thus, development of the circular economy is dependent upon deeper understanding of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. Research typically considers either micro‐level or macro‐level factors when assessing consumer perceptions of remanufactured products. The current research incorporates macro‐level factors of price, government incentives and environmental benefits with the moderating influence of micro‐level consumer attitudes to examine consumers’ intention to switch from purchasing new products to remanufactured products. The findings suggest that a consumer's attitude toward remanufactured products is an important moderating factor predicting consumer switching behavior to remanufactured products. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Demand for durable and nondurable goods,environmental policy and consumer welfare

If a tax on energy affects the demand for a nondurable good, the stock of a durable good, and the proportion of the energy consumption per unit of service of the durable good, an integrated approach for investigating consumer demand for durables and nondurables is required. The purpose of this paper is to employ the concept of a variable expenditure function with quasi-fixed durable goods as arguments in order to derive a demand system for nondurable goods in prices of the nondurables, in the stocks of durables, and in variable expenditure. From the envelope condition desired stocks of durables can be calculated and investment demand for durables can be determined. For an application we choose a variable expenditure function based on the almost ideal demand specification, and evaluate alternative environmental policy measures using the equivalent variation for comparing the welfare effects.     

Federalism,taxation, and economic growth

We present a model of endogenous growth where government provides a productive public good financed by income and capital taxes. In equilibrium, a decentralized government chooses tax policy to maximize economic growth, while a centralized government does not do so. Furthermore, these conclusions hold regardless of whether governments are beholden to a median voter or are rent-maximizing Leviathans. However, a decentralized government will under-provide public goods which benefit citizens directly, while a central government beholden to the median voter will optimally invest in such public goods.     

谈政府集中采购模式下政府集中采购机构与招标代理中介机构的利与弊

政府采购就是指国家各级政府为从事日常的政务活动或为了满足公共服务的目的,利用国家财政性资金和政府借款购买货物、工程和服务的行为。我国的政府采购制度将采购行为划分为集中采购和分散采购。集中采购的代理行为是政府采购流程中的关键环节。     

回收再制造逆向供应链中定价契约协调的研究

按分散式决策、集中式决策两种情形,分别构建了产品回收量与回收价格和回收努力同时相关的逆向供应链决策模型;并通过二部定价契约和回馈与惩罚契约对分散决策下的逆向供应链实现了协调,避免了"双重边际加价"所导致的利益损失,使得整条供应链的总利润与集中决策下的目标一致。     

Competing Environmental Labels

We study markets in which consumers prefer green products but cannot determine the environmental quality of any given firm's product on their own. A nongovernmental organization (NGO) can establish a voluntary standard and label products that comply with it. Alternatively, industry can create its own standard and label. We compare the stringency of these two types of labels, and study their strategic interaction when they coexist. We find that even with error‐free labels, environmental benefits may be smaller with two labels than with the NGO label alone, and we characterize when label competition is more likely to be environmentally beneficial.     

心电采集系统的可靠性设计

文章介绍了用Winbond公司的8位单片机W78LE54设计的心电OEM模块,以200HZ速率采集人体标准Ⅰ、Ⅱ、Ⅲ导联心电信号。采集卡利用一种高度集成的USB转UART桥接器CP2101芯片实现了通用串行总线（USB）接口方式,可实现计算机外设的即插即用特性。     

An Empirical Analysis of Planned Obsolescence

This paper examines the decision to introduce new products by durable goods producers. Conventional wisdom suggests that durable goods producers introduce new products to kill off used products. However, used units may not compete with new units if initial price can capture the present value of all future transactions. Using new data from the textbook market, I find that publishers revise editions more frequently when competition from used textbooks increases. This suggests the presence of planned obsolescence. However, the time since the previous revision also significantly affects revision decisions, indicating that publishers' frequent revision cannot be attributed to planned obsolescence alone .     

Organizational choice and product differentiation

A centralized structure will set higher prices and locate products closer together than a decentralized one. A decentralized organizational structure is chosen because the entry-deterring effect of such a structure outweighs the monopoly effects of a centralized one for sufficiently low entry fee levels.