Implications of quality standard regulation for multiproduct monopoly pricing

An important concern of regulatory agencies is the quality and variety of products offered for sale. This paper considers the effects of introducing quality standards in a monopolized market where the monopoly sells a range of qualities of a product to consumers with varying taste for quality. The introduction of a minimum acceptable quality can alter the entire price and quality schedule offered by the monopolist. Both a uniform and a more general distribution of consumers are studied to examine these changes and their implications for general welfare.     

Delay dynamics in nonlinear monopoly with gradient adjustment

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Two types of boundedly rational monopolists are considered, when they are unable to determine the profit maximizing output levels. In the first case, the...     

Optimal monopoly market area spanning in multidimensional commodity spaces

A monopoly firm locates in multidimensional product characteristics' space by setting a price that maximizes its profits. The monopoly market area (MMA) it serves strikes the happy medium between lower price and larger MMA, assuming absence of price discrimination, by setting the price at the MMA margins. The MMA takes different shapes, such as hyperspheres or hypercubes, depending on how customers perceive the product distance from their ideal tastes. Commodity space dimensionality, a measure of customer taste elaboration, has a robust effect on optimization: the optimal MMA stretch increases and price decreases with dimensionality, with different customer sensitivity patterns in place. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal ticket pricing for performance goods

When purchasing a ticket to a performance good, such as a movie or sporting event, the consumer does not actually buy the product, but simply access to viewing the product. Although the performance is the primary impetus for the ticket purchase, many performance goods offer complementary products such as concessions to their patrons. This paper suggests that when the price setter receives a share of revenues from concessions, overall profits will be maximized when tickets are priced in the inelastic section of demand. The model can be used to explain inelastic point estimates for ticket pricing found in other performance good studies. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Optimal pricing of a conspicuous product during a recession that freezes capital markets

This paper considers the problem of how to price a conspicuous product when the economy is in a recession that disrupts capital markets. A conspicuous product in this context is a luxury good for which demand is increasing in brand image. Brand image here means the ability of a consumer to impress observers by conspicuously displaying consumption of the good. Brand image is built up when the good is priced high enough to make it exclusive, and eroded if the good is discounted.Recession is modeled as having two effects: it reduces demand and it freezes capital markets so borrowing is not possible. In pricing the conspicuous product the firm faces the following trade-off. Reducing price helps maintain sales volume and cash flow in the face of reduced demand, but it also damages brand image and thus long-term demand.The paper analyzes the firm's pricing policy facing scenarios of mild, intermediate and severe recessions, while taking the threat of bankruptcy into account. For an intermediate recession the optimal solution is history-dependent. The results have implications for policy interventions in capital markets and for timing of mergers and acquisitions.     

Rent-seeking in a unionised monopoly

A unionised monopoly firm, benefitting from some kind of anti-competitive regulation, and its corresponding trade union have a common interest in spending resources to protect the monopoly rents created by the regulation. In the present paper, a situation in which the unionised monopoly is challenged by a consumer organisation fighting for deregulation is analysed as a standard Tullock rent-seeking contest. With unequal sharing of monopoly rents, the free-riding incentives among the rent-defending players turn out to be overwhelming, in the sense that the unique Nash equilibrium is characterised by zero effort contribution by the player with the lower valuation of the contested prize. This implies that being “strong”, in terms of bargaining strength, is not necessarily an advantage for neither player in a unionised monopoly that is threatened by deregulation. Received: June 2000 / accepted: January 2001     

Optimal pricing strategy for foreign market entry: a game theoretic approach

Given that pricing plays an important role in a company's international competitive strategy, researchers have long argued the need for theory building in the area of international pricing. This study develops an optimal pricing strategy for foreign market entry using a game theoretic framework. The proposed model assumes two firms, a local incumbent and a foreign entrant, competing in a market. Consumers know the quality of the incumbent's offering, but do not know how it compares to that of the foreign entrant's. Based on these assumptions, and using the theory of inference making, we propose an upward price distortion by the entrant firm as an optimal entry strategy under incomplete information. The paper presents a game theoretic derivation to establish that the game has a unique intuitive separating equilibrium where the entrant firm stands to gain by engaging in upward price distortion to signal high quality to consumers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal control of pricing strategy for diffusion model

This study presents a conceptual framework based on the new product diffusion and demand theory models. The proposed framework was creating a probability of demand function. Considering effectiveness of demand function transmitted by adopters, the optimal control policies of pricing are conducted according to the optimal control theorv.     

Optimal highway design and user welfare under value pricing

This paper investigates the optimal design of highways operated under a form of congestion pricing called value pricing. Value pricing involves dividing a highway into free and priced lanes so that in equilibrium the highway effectively operates at two levels of service, with those users placing a higher value on travel time savings selecting the faster, priced route. A tractable analytical framework is developed which allows analysis of equilibrium and welfare on value priced highways when users vary in their value of time. The model is used to characterize optimal toll and capacity policies, as well as investigate the fiscal implications of value pricing. The analysis concludes with results on how welfare changes induced by value pricing are distributed over the population of users when the government finances any funding shortfall through a non-discriminatory taxing mechanism. A realistic numeric example is used to illustrate how the model can be applied to evaluation of actual and proposed value pricing implementations.     

Optimal dynamic pricing for sports games with habitual attendance

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the optimal pricing decisions of a sports team that maximizes lifetime profits in sports markets where game attendance is habit‐forming for sports fans. The long‐run equilibrium price and attendance level are found to be greater than the counterparts of the static framework, respectively. The infinite horizon model shows that the pricing strategy of the firm brings about an upward‐crossing of two different dynamic price paths where the price path with stronger habit formation initially stays below, catches up, and ultimately rises above the price path with weaker habit formation. It is worth noting that the upward‐crossing phenomenon is not fully understood in a finite‐period model. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation of competitive nonlinear pricing: tariffs with inclusive consumption

The paper studies how the optimal nonlinear quantity-payment allocation can be truthfully implemented by optional tariffs in a differentiated goods duopoly. Consumers choose from a menu of tariffs and are subsequently billed according to this. We find that implementation by simple two part tariffs may not be a feasible strategy in a duopoly because the optimal nonlinear tariff exhibits a convexity for lower quantities. We show that the optimal outcome can be implemented if the firms can use two part tariffs with inclusive consumption. The fixed fee includes a free consumption allowance, whereas subsequent consumption is charged according to a steep unit price. That way the firm is able to secure voluntary participation without violating the incentive constraint. The paper shows some examples from the telecommunications industry where firms offer two part tariffs with free call minutes to low demand segments.     

On the maximizing behavior of a monopoly planner

Conclusions The model developed here leads to some useful conclusions. If we consider an economy without trade where the supply of inputs varies in response to the level of current real consumption paid to inputs, then the relevant social input constraint for the planners is not a single production possibilities locus, but the planners feasibility constraint developed here. This constraint traces the locus of points on a family of production possibility surfaces that would be generated by each alternative quantity of inputs. The rate of product transformation along the planners' feasibility function will differ from the rate of product transformation along the production possibilities locus by an amount that reflects the marginal input supply. In such an economy, whenever the arguments of the planners' welfare function are not identical with the arguments of the input supply function, the necessary conditions for the planners' optimum will be non-optimal with reference to usual market socialist welfare criteria. At equilibrium, the marginal rate of product substitution in the planners' welfare function will not equal the marginal rate of product transformation on the production possibilities function. In addition, when the tastes of planners and of consumers diverge, the necessary conditions for the planners' optimum imply the exercise of some monopoly power by the planners. For given input supply conditions and given production functions, the magnitude of the monopoly effect increases to a limiting value as the diverge of tastes between planners and consumers increases.     

Optimal design of nonlinear experiments with parameter constraints

The nonlinear regression model with N observations y _i=η(x _i,θ) +ε_i, and with the parameter θ subject to q nonlinear constraints C _j (θ)=0; j=1, …,q, is considered. As an example, the spline regression with unknown nodes is taken. Expressions for the variances (variance matrices) of the LSE are discussed. Because of the complexity of these expressions, and the singularity of the variance matrix of the LSE for θ, the optimality criteria and their properties, in particular the convexity and the equivalence theorem are considered from different aspects. Also the possibility of restriction to designs with limited values of measures of nonlinearity is mentioned. Research supported by the VEGA-grant of the Slovak grant agency No. 1/7295/20.     

Implementing road-use pricing by stealth

The recent White Paper indicates the start of serious attention to the use of road-use pricing, while the hard edge of the argument is to be found in the Treasury's Comprehensive Spending Review. What has yet to be examined is the problem of equipping the nation's vehicles with the necessary devices, effective for the purpose over the whole country. This could be done by replacing the paper 'tax disc' with a standardised electronic tag - carrying stored credit-units - which could provide for road-use payments as and where they come to be introduced.     

Bridging bargaining theory with the regulation of a natural monopoly

Review of Economic Design - In this paper, we integrate the bargaining theory with the problem of regulating a natural monopoly under symmetric information or asymmetric information with complete...     

Price discrimination and the location choice of a durable goods monopoly

Delivered pricing by a spatial monopoly amounts to third degree price discrimination. Well known results in spatial economics show that the monopolist location choice is efficient under delivered pricing and generally inefficient under mill pricing. By contrast, the present paper shows that if the monopolist sells a durable good, the location is also inefficient under delivered pricing.     

Road pricing in a free society

Improved road pricing would be an indispensable element in a road system run on commercial principles, with charges for road use not co-mingled with taxes, and with no discrimination against private road providers. But pricing imposed by a monopoly supplier, to 'restrain' motorised mobility, is unacceptable in a free society.     

如何定价楼盘

2008年的一项调查显示,购房者最关注的三大因素分别是价格、地段、开发及物业,其中关注价格因素的占83%.……