再制造补贴下考虑质量水平的闭环供应链定价决策研究

考虑废旧产品的质量水平,研究政府再制造补贴政策和再制造产品接受程度对闭环供应链定价决策的影响,应用斯塔克伯格竞争博弈构建了集中式决策和分散式决策两种定价决策模型,分析政府补贴系数和再制造接受程度对供应链最优决策的作用,并比较两种决策下供应链最优决策的差异。研究表明:集中式决策下的供应链效率高于分散式决策;再制造补贴将会减少再制造产品的销售价格、新产品的市场需求和供应链利润,增加再制造产品的市场需求;提高再制造产品接受程度将会增加再制造产品的市场竞争力,但会挤兑新产品的市场需求;新产品的销售价格始终无变化。最后设计利润协调契约来提高分散决策下供应链的效率。     

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.     

基于不同类型消费者的再制造策略研究

本文对一个垄断制造商的再制造策略进行了研究。首先根据消费者对于再制造产品的接受程度把消费者分为两类，然后根据不同类型消费者的特点，给出了在不同的价格策略下，再制造产品和新产品的需求函数。据此本文建立了制造商的最优决策模型，并分别给出了制造商的最优价格策略。最后通过数值分析对结果进行了进一步的验证。     

Differential pricing and production strategies for heterogeneous products under cannibalization and promotional effects

This study examines the optimal pricing and production strategy of a closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a recycler, and consumers. Considering the cannibalization and promotion effects of remanufactured products on new and secondhand products, we constructed Stackelberg game models under different scenarios. We analyze the impact of the changes in the two effects on the optimal prices and production strategies of the manufacturer and recycler, as well as their countermeasures. We find that (i) how the cannibalization and promotional effects influence the manufacturer and the recycler's pricing and production strategies differ under different scenarios; (ii) when the two effects exceed a threshold, the manufacturer abandons new or remanufactured products, and the recycler prefers to stop production on its new products or continue to remanufacture products; and (iii) the two effects always reduce the profits of the manufacturer and increase the profits of the recycler.     

When to haggle,when to hold firm? Lessons from the used‐car retail market

Though haggling has been the conventional way for auto retailers to sell cars, the last two decades have witnessed the systematic adoption of no‐haggle prices by many large dealerships, including the largest new‐ and used‐car dealership chains. This paper develops a structural empirical model to estimate sellers' profits under posted price and haggling, and investigates how market conditions affect sellers' optimal pricing formats. The model incorporates a simple class of bargaining mechanisms into a standard random‐coefficient discrete‐choice model. With the extension, the product‐level demand system is estimated using data with only list prices, and the unobserved price discounts are also recovered in the estimation. The counterfactual experiments yield a few interesting findings. First, dealers' adopted pricing formats seem superior to the alternative ones. Second, dealers enjoying larger market power through vertical differentiation and carrying a large number of models are more likely to have posted price as their optimal pricing format.     

Strategic pricing of differentiated consumer durables in a dynamic duopoly: A numerical analysis

Under different modes of competitive pricing behavior, profit-maximizing price trajectories are derived for durable products in a dynamic duopoly. Open-loop co-operative and non-cooperative pricing behavior is analyzed within a comprehensive model where sales of differentiated products are described by interlocked diffusion processes with realistic demand characteristics. Because of analytic complexity, the optimal trajectories implied by the control and differential-game problems are derived numerically across an extensive set of plausible market scenarios. Manipulation of initial market conditions enables derivation of optimal competitive pricing as a function of timing of entry.     

The Impact of Consumption Hassle on Pricing Schedules

A curious phenomenon in the retail pricing of many product categories (e.g., tuna, frozen orange juice, and tomato paste) is the existence of quantity surcharges. A related curiosity is the existence of both discounts and surcharges within the same product category. To explain the former phenomenon, extant research invokes heterogeneity in consumption parameters, heterogeneity in search costs, or concern for retail price image. To the best of our knowledge, there is no received explanation for the latter phenomenon. We add to this rich stream of work by proposing a novel explanation for quantity surcharges. Our explanation is based on the notion of consumption hassle. We analyze a market that is heterogeneous in a hedonic parameter that influences valuations as well as the effective cost of the consumption hassle. We then derive consumer choices (small pack, large pack, or two small packs) taking into account Individual Rationality (IR) and Incentive Compatibility (IC) constraints. In the absence of consumption hassle, we obtain two segments with one purchasing the small pack and the other purchasing the large pack. Moreover, the optimal pricing for the seller involves quantity discounts. However, with the introduction of consumption hassle, the market potentially splits into three segments: one purchasing the small pack, another purchasing two small packs, and the third purchasing the large pack. Moreover, the optimal pricing for the seller involves quantity surcharges. Overall, our analytical findings offer an additional explanation for the phenomenon of quantity surcharges. More importantly, they offer a rationale for the existence of multiple pricing schedules within the same product category by explicitly recognizing variations in consumption hassle. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

双边平台型信息产品企业版本划分策略研究

新兴的信息产品市场大多是双边市场,其中企业进行竞争时如何利用信息产品特性和市场双边特性,对产品质量和双边定价进行决策,运用纵向差异化策略达到最优收益,是双边平台型信息产品企业面对的重要问题。结合双边市场理论与版本划分理论,建立博弈模型,分析双边信息产品市场内平台型企业竞争的最优双边定价和产品版本划分的具体质量。结果显示:企业产品定价受产品组合质量差异的影响,对卖家定价由市场情况决定;企业提高付费产品质量可以提高收益,此时免费产品质量应根据市场双边特性强度进行调整;市场双边特性显著时企业免费产品质量应降低以提高收益,反之亦然;企业产品质量决策保证了双边规模和上游收益,下游收益则受市场双边特性强弱影响,市场双边特性显著时,平台付费产品价格和付费消费者规模提高,下游收益和总收益提高。     

Optimal advance selling discount strategy with future-oriented consumers

This paper examines the advance selling decisions over two periods and considers future-oriented consumers who are more concerned about the product quality than price discounts. We find that the advance selling strategy is not always best, and its merits are contingent on parameters of the market and consumers. Moreover, there is no need to set a deep advance selling discount for the retailer if consumers are highly risk averse. Next, we analyze the feasible advance selling pricing strategies for the retailer. Finally, we observe that the retailer can announce a higher advance selling price if consumers are moderately risk averse.     

Production quality and pricing strategy for substitutable products under comparison effects

Comparison effects have been studied extensively in many fields. In particular, existing operations management articles have discussed the impact of comparison effects on enterprises' production and pricing decisions. Research has also shown that consumers' purchasing decisions are primarily determined by three factors: product quality, selling price, and comparison effects. The current study introduces the concepts of social and temporal comparison effects to examine how comparison effects influence a monopolist’s production quality and pricing strategy for substitutable products. Results reveal the following: (1) Setting different prices for even two types of substitutable products with negligible quality differences can divide customers into three groups under the influence of social comparison effects in a single-stage model. (2) The monopolist should avoid using a price discrimination strategy in which products with a short market life cycle have the same quality but different prices. (3) When the market life cycle of products is sufficiently long in the single-product market and the market with two substitutable products, the monopolist’s optimal choice in the second stage is to keep production quality constant and increase the selling price. Consequently, the number of buyers does not decrease because of temporal comparison effects. Therefore, the firm increases its revenue. (4) For the market with two substitutable products with quality differences, one approximate optimal strategy for the enterprise in the second stage is to keep the selling price constant with the assumption that product quality cannot be adjusted after the first period. At this point, the consumption situation in the market is the same as that in the first stage. Therefore, when no external constraints exist, the monopolist firm can obtain more benefits in the second stage than in the first stage by exploiting the temporal comparison effects of consumers in the second stage. (5) When consumer identity information can be confirmed in the market, social comparison effects, similar to temporal comparison effects, could help the enterprise increase its price and profit while maintaining product quality. These social and temporal comparison effects constrain consumers. Thus, the number of people who continue to buy products does not decrease.     

Price discrimination and bargaining power in the U.S. vaccine market: Implications for childhood immunization policy

The U.S. vaccine market exhibits a pricing structure in which the major purchaser of vaccines, the public sector, receives substantial discounts. This outcome is consistent with three theories of market behavior: third-degree price discrimination; bargaining power; and cost differences. The true nature of this pricing structure has important efficiency and policy implications. This paper uses a longitudinal data set of private catalog and federal contract prices to empirically determine whether price discrimination or bargaining power is being practiced in this market. I find that, while it is not possible to eliminate other factors, the results favor the bargaining power hypothesis.     

基于多项Logit选择模型的在线渠道价格促销效应实证研究

在线渠道下,不同品牌的价格折扣促销的差异性会引起在线消费者品牌选择行为变化。同时,在线的价格比较机制也增加了消费者价格敏感度,如果不分离出这一重要的促销效应,那么会产生估计偏差,影响模型的预测能力。本文首先回顾品牌选择的离散模型中价格促销的研究脉络;然后构建在线渠道消费者品牌选择离散Logit模型;接着在对中国某电子商务公司的消费者实际购买可乐的面板数据分析的基础上,研究价格折扣对于该公司消费者品牌选择行为的影响效应,研究发现：（1）如果不引入价格折扣促销因素,将会过高估计价格的影响;（2）价格折扣促销对于消费者网上品牌选择有显著的影响,且影响为正效应。文章最后剖析价格折扣对在线渠道的消费者品牌选择的行为影响机理,并提出未来的研究方向。     

An analysis of decentralized collection and processing of end-of-life products

In this study, we analyze decentralized collection and processing operations for end-of-life products in durable goods industries. We consider a durable end-of-life product from which a particular part can be dismantled and remanufactured, and the remainder of the product can be further processed for part and/or material recovery. Both the quantity of end-of-life products available and the demand for remanufactured parts are price-sensitive. We develop models to determine the optimal acquisition price of the end-of-life products and the selling price of the remanufactured parts in centralized as well as remanufacturer- and collector-driven decentralized channels. We discuss how the decentralized channels can be coordinated to attain the end-of-life product collection rate that can be achieved in the centralized channel. In the presence of environmental regulations that require an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of durable goods to collect and process its end-of-life products, we identify when and why the OEM would prefer a remanufacturer- or a collector-driven channel, i.e., outsource the processing or the collection activity, respectively. From a practical perspective, we show that the OEM should prefer a collector-driven channel to increase the collection rate, when end-of-life products are homogenous. However, we also show that the OEM would prefer a remanufacturer-driven channel under certain conditions. We also examine how the OEM can increase the quantity of used products collected, when the collection rate in the preferred channel setting falls short of the collection rate mandated by the environmental regulation. When end-of-life products are heterogeneous, we observe that the collection rate for all quality groups can be positive in a remanufacturer-driven channel, whereas the collection rate for some quality groups may be zero. This indicates that the OEM must pay more attention to its outsourcing decision in this case, if the environmental regulation in effect specifies target collection rates for individual quality groups.     

State aid and the learning-by-doing effect on product pricing

Product pricing is challenging for most companies due to its strategic nature and because numerous factors affect it. Recently, government support also started to gain high impact on business decisions especially in case of new products or new companies. The paper investigates how state aid, accumulated productivity knowledge, and the efficiency of learning determine product pricings dynamic nature. With the help of a multiperiod model, we analyze the interrelation of price and profit, demand and price, learning and pricing, and cost and demand. Results also include the analytical denouements, graphical illustrations, and observations of the optimal conditions.     

Paying Customers to Switch

This paper studies the business practice of offering discounts to new customers in markets with switching costs. In a two-period homogeneous-good duopoly model, it is shown that the equilibrium amount of discounts increases continuously in the expected switching costs of a typical consumer. In equilibrium, firms offer the same prices and discounts in a mature market even if they have different market shares, and the demands faced by these firms in a new market become more elastic. Firms are worse off engaging in the discriminatory pricing, while consumers need not necessarily benefit from it. There is costly equilibrium switching of consumers, which creates a dead-weight loss to the society.     

Optimal Two‐Part Pricing under Demand Uncertainty

This paper examines the pricing behavior of a risk‐averse monopolistic firm under demand uncertainty. The firm produces a single good at a constant marginal cost. To facilitate sales, the firm uses a two‐part pricing contract that includes a membership fee and a selling price per unit. The good is sold to a continuum of heterogeneous consumers who are subject to a common demand shock. We show that the global and marginal effects of risk aversion are to push the unit price closer to the constant marginal cost and to shrink the market coverage so as to limit the firm’s risk exposure to the demand uncertainty. The more risk‐averse firm as such charges a higher membership fee to consumers. We further show that an increase in the fixed cost of production induces the firm to lower (raise) the unit price, to raise (lower) the membership fee, and to shrink (enlarge) the market coverage under decreasing (increasing) absolute risk aversion. The firm’s optimal two‐part pricing contract, however, is unaffected by changes in the fixed cost under constant absolute risk aversion. Finally, we show that a mean‐preserving‐spread increase in the demand uncertainty induces the firm to lower the unit price, to raise the membership fee, and to shrink the market coverage under either decreasing or constant absolute risk aversion. The firm’s risk preferences as such play a pivotal role in determining the optimal two‐part pricing under demand uncertainty. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic Competition with Experience Goods

This paper considers dynamic competition in the case in which consumers are only able to learn about their preferences for a certain product after experiencing it. After trying a product a consumer has more information about that product than about untried products. When competing in such a market firms with more sales in the past have an informational advantage because more consumers know their products. If products provide a better-than-expected fit with greater likelihood, taking advantage of that informational advantage may lead to an informational disadvantage in the future. This paper considers this competition with an infinite horizon model in a duopoly market with overlapping generations of consumers. Two effects are identified: On one hand marginal forward-looking consumers realize that by purchasing a product in the current period will be charged a higher expected price in the future. This effect results in reduced price sensitivity and higher equilibrium prices. On the other hand, forward-looking firms realize that they gain in the future from having a greater market share in the current period and compete more aggressively in prices. For similar discount factors for consumers and firms, the former effect is more important, and prices are higher the greater the informational advantages. The paper also characterizes oscillating market share dynamics, and comparative statics of the equilibrium with respect to consumer and firm patience, and the importance of the experience in the ex post valuation of the product.     

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     

Spatial competition under uniform delivered pricing

A Hotelling-type model of spatial competition is considered, in which two firms compete in uniform delivered prices. First, it is shown that there exists no uniform delivered price–location equilibrium when the product sold by the firms is perfectly homogeneous andwhen consumers buy from the firm quoting the lower delivered price. Second, when the product is heterogeneous and when preferences are identically, independently Weibull-distributed with standard deviation μ, we prove that there exists a single uniform delivered price–location equilibrium iff μ≧1/8 times the transportation rate times the size of the market. In equilibrium, firms are located at the center of the market and charge the same uniform delivered price, which equals their average transportation cost, plus a mark-up of 2μ. Finally, we discuss how our result extends to the case of n firms and proceed to a comparison of equilibria under uniform mill and delivered pricing.     

产品定价的排队博弈分析

产品定价是企业经营决策的重要内容之一,利用排队博弈的方法分析企业定价策略是最近几年发展起来的一种新思想。本文研究了在双寡头竞争的市场条件下,企业产品最优定价的排队博弈模型,分析了产品价格与成本、质量和交易等待成本之间的关系,推导出最优定价策略的纳什均衡解。最后给出了一家企业的产品最优定价实例。