Product differentiation under imperfect information: When does offering a lower quality pay?

In this paper, we extend the Varian (1980) model to examine endogenous quality differentiation by firms, with a particular emphasis on the interplay between the firms’ product quality decisions and the ensuing price rivalry. Specifically, we assume that the price-sensitive (or informed) consumers hold a lower valuation for product quality than the brand-loyal (or uninformed) consumers. It is shown that the firms will choose differentiated qualities for a broad class of consumer utility functions and production technologies. We obtain two results. First, the equilibrium quality choices are efficient as they are also the welfare-maximizing qualities chosen by a social planner. The equilibrium qualities are as if one firm serves only its loyal consumers and the other serves only the price-sensitive consumers, even though they each serve both types of consumers (at least for some fraction of time). Second, the firm choosing the lower quality makes greater profits and also prices more aggressively, in the sense that it maintains a lower maximum price and offers discounts more often. The lower-quality product is more profitable because it yields higher social surplus when consumed by the price-sensitive consumers.

思茅市推进普洱茶产业化的政府工程研究

本文认为,思茅市政府长期重视普洱茶产业发展,在政策上给予大力支持,主要体现在推进规模化种植、提升加工能力和整体推进产业化等各方面。文章提出,针对近年来思茅茶产业发展存在的问题,政府应遵循“整合、转型、开放、创新、挖掘”的发展思路,在政策促进方面要有重点地抓好普洱茶产业化十大工程,即政策环境工程、组织建设工程、品牌塑造工程、市场开拓工程、原产地认证与标准化工程、开放促发展工程、科技与人才保障工程、产业链建设工程、产业投融资工程、文化建设工程等。     

黑色旅游的营销开发策略探究

黑色旅游是是近年来国内外,特别是欧美地区旅游学界新兴的热点研究领域,也是一个颇具争议的领域。本文探讨了开发黑色旅游的可行性及营销策略。     

基于Aptina ASX340的倒车影像系统设计与实现

为了避免倒车过程中因视觉盲区可能出现的安全隐患问题[1][2],文章采用飞思卡尔单片机做主机,Aptina图像传感器ASX340[3]做从机,利用ASX340内部的OVERLAY位图叠加系统,设计了一种能够将倒车过程中实时的车辆尾部的影像,距离障碍物的安全距离,倒车轨迹路径等信息提供驾驶员倒车影像系统[9][10]。使用HYRes3_1、Imatest软件[4]测量了影像图像质量的主要因素。测量结果表明成像质量能够满足目前车厂的要求。     

大数据、人工智能与厂商竞争路径

经济学对市场竞争路径的学理性分析，主要集中在价格确定、产量确定、规模经济、产业组织等方面，而对科技进步引发市场竞争路径的变化并没有足够的关注。其实，市场竞争路径变化的底蕴是科技进步，只是经济学家在分析市场竞争路径时偏好于将科技因素作为外生变量处理。大数据和人工智能等的发展可谓是一场史无前例的科技革命，它对人类经济活动产生广泛而深刻的影响主要表现为：大数据及其运用怎样影响厂商投资经营，大数据与机器学习等人工智能手段相融合会在哪些方面改变厂商竞争路径，厂商如何提高数据智能化和实现网络协同化，在什么样的条件下会出现行业垄断，等等。文章的基本分析观点是：厂商竞争路径变化是贯穿于大数据、互联网和人工智能等相互融合过程的一种现象，这种现象对应于新科技进步和运用的不同层级；微观经济分析需要将新科技因素作为内生变量，通过分析大数据、机器学习与厂商竞争路径之间的关联，揭示厂商竞争路径变化机理以及由此引致的产业组织等问题。     

20 years of research on virtual reality and augmented reality in tourism context: A text-mining approach

Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have undergone technical evolutions over the last few decades including improvements in immersion and the feeling of telepresence. Several examples of the applications of such techniques can be found in stores, tourism, hotel, restaurants, and destinations. Yet, a comprehensive analysis of studies employing such techniques in tourism-related studies is difficult to find. The current study uses citation network analysis and text-mining techniques to conduct a full-text analysis of 56 journal papers and 325 conference proceedings related to VR and AR in the tourism context. This paper intends to (i) provide an overview of the VR and AR-related tourism studies network and discuss them over time, (ii) present the most important topics and studies emerging from this literature, (iii) suggest avenues for further research. Findings reveal 10 core topics in journal papers and 11 core topics in conference proceedings, which are presented together with an overview of the published studies and the main authors.     

政企分开政策驱动下国有森工企业转型路径研究

回顾了国家的林业政策,梳理了黑龙江国有森工企业的转型要素,分析了国有森工企业转型发展路径的影响因素。基于政企分开的政策因素与企业的发展需要,结合国有森工企业转型存在的现实问题,分别从企业转型能力、企业转型意愿和企业转型方向3个方面阐述政企分开政策对国有森工企业转型的驱动作用。在此基础上,提出在政企分开政策驱动下国有森工企业转型发展的实现路径,并从重新定位政府与市场关系、注重培育国有森工企业内部组织平台化转型路径和构建品牌转型路径3个方面进行国有森工企业转型发展的路径研究。     

“Retail is detail! Give consumers a gift rather than a bundle”: Promotion framing and consumer product returns

Retailers often use the promotion strategy of offering supplementary products (e.g., free gift, bundle) to attract consumers and increase sales. Despite the growing literature on the promotions that are differently framed but offer economically identical values, little research has examined the link between promotion framing and consumer product returns. The current article sheds light on this relationship, hypothesizing that a free gift promotion would be superior to a bundle promotion in reducing consumer product returns. The findings suggest that a gift‐framed promotion leads to a lower product return intention than an economically equivalent bundle promotion, because consumers tend to perceive more loss from giving up the gift‐framed (vs. bundle‐framed) deal. Further, this study examines a moderating role of brand familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and shows that the merits of free gift framing on product return intention via perceived loss are amplified (attenuated) when the promoted brand is familiar (unfamiliar). Overall, the investigations of this study imply that it is better to frame a promotion as a “free gift” than a “bundle” to increase perceived loss in returning the purchase and thus to decrease consumer product returns. This strategic intervention works especially when the gift is offered by familiar brands.     

A Systematic Review on the Effects of Personalized Price Promotions for Food Products

Recent decades have witnessed the increasing adoption of personalized price promotion (PPP) at grocery stores. Despite the growing body of research debating whether PPP is more effective than untargeted price promotions, there is no literature synthesizing the relevant evidence on food products. Therefore, we conduct a systematic review to examine empirical findings on the effects of PPP targeting food products. Outcomes of 12 identified studies demonstrate larger sales and profit boosting effects of PPP than its non-personalized counterparts. Meanwhile, the results on how this approach influences consumer behavior are mixed. The effectiveness of PPP varies among different targeting strategies (e.g. reward or cross-selling) and information collection methods (e.g. using within- or across-chain data). The findings of this review have important managerial implications for the future evaluation and application of PPP as well as imply potential directions of further research on this topic.