Learning by doing and dominant firm pricing strategy

This paper examines the implientions of introducing a learning curve into the Gaskins model of dynamic limit pricing by a dominant firm. It is shown that the possibility of obtaining learning oconomics will induce dominant firms to initially lower prices below what would prevail in the absence of the learning effect. However, the possibility that the price path over time crosses the one that would be obtained in the absence of learning economies cannot be ruled out.     

药价虚高博弈分析

药价问题是关系能否顺利建设和谐社会的大事，“药价虚高”已引起各方高度关注，如何才能根治这个问题呢？本文发现医药定价改革的关键是解决医患之间严重的信息不对称问题，为此本文建立了一个序贯均衡博弈模型，给出了解决医患信息不对称的方法：进行医院专业化及建立医德机制。     

Dynamic Pricing,Advance Sales and Aggregate Demand Learning in Airlines

This paper uses a unique U.S. airlines panel data set to study empirically the dynamic pricing of inventories with uncertain demand over a finite horizon. I estimate a dynamic pricing equation and a dynamic demand equation that jointly characterize the adjustment process between prices and sales as the flight date nears. I find that the price increases as the inventory decreases, and decreases as there is less time to sell. Consistent with aggregate demand learning and price adjustment, demand shocks have a positive and much larger effect on prices than the positive effect of anticipated sales.     

基于佣金定价决策的供应链金融平台利益权衡机制研究

中介性质的供应链金融平台,创建与客户利益有效协调的佣金定价机制至关重要。本文运用鲁宾斯轮流讨价还价博弈思想,以债权融资业务为背景,构建了信息不对称情况下供应链金融中介平台与客户关于佣金决策的讨价还价博弈模型。通过博弈分析得出了平台的最优佣金定价机制,按此佣金定价,可实现平台与客户利益的合理权衡。最后,对平台的定价机制进行了算例验证。     

Spatial Price Discrimination with Heterogeneous Firms

In this paper we aim to explain intuitively heterogeneous firms’ optimal location decisions in a simple spatial market. To do so, we present and solve a four‐stage game of entry, location, pricing and consumption in a spatial price discrimination framework with arbitrarily many heterogeneous firms. We provide a unique equilibrium outcome without imposing restrictions on the distribution of marginal costs across firms.     

The Dominant Firm Model Revisited

This paper extends the standard Forchheimer dominant firm model by making more explicit shifts in the fringe supply when the market price set the dominant firm deviate from its limit price. It demonstrated how, when a dominant firm engages in short-run profit maximization, the market price it sets in the long run will equal its limit price and that, in certain situations, increased production cost for fringe lead to an increase in the number of fringe firms in the long run.     

Sales Promotion and Cooperative Retail Pricing Strategies

Supermarket retailers make strategic pricing decisions in a high-frequency, repeated game environment both in buying and selling fresh produce. In this context, there is some question as to whether a non-cooperative equilibrium can emerge that produces margins above the competitive level. Supermarket pricing results from tacitly collusive equilibria supported by trigger price strategies played in upstream markets. Upstream activities are, in turn, driven by periodic retail price promotions. This hypothesis is tested using a sample of fresh produce pricing data from 20 US supermarket chains. The results support the existence of tacitly collusive non-cooperative equilibria in upstream and downstream markets.     

企业内部市场定价:基于行为的理论模型

本文从行为的视角探讨内部市场定价问题。根据内部市场主体之间的合作、竞争行为提出并界定了内部市场结构的概念，将内部市场划分为简单型、合作主导型、竞争主导型、复合型四种结构类型；通过分析企业战略、内部定价对内部市场主体之间合作、竞争行为的影响，得出了企业战略决定内部市场结构应然、内部定价调节内部市场结构实然的结论：以内部市场结构的实然与应然相一致为原则．构建了企业内部市场定价的理论模型，阐述了在各种内部市场结构应然要求下的内部定价方法、决策权安排、绩效考核标准和激励机制等。     

Sustaining Collusion Via a Fuzzy Trigger

Probability theory is the standard economic representation of uncertainty, although it is not always an accurate one. Fuzzy logic is an alternative representation that does not require individual beliefs regarding the explicit functional form of uncertainty. This paper applies fuzzy logic to an oligopoly trigger pricing game. The fuzzy trigger pricing game reverses the standard cyclical price war prediction; collusion-sustaining price wars are most likely to occur during times of high demand. The fuzzy model also predicts that markets with relatively volatile prices are more likely to undergo collusion-sustaining price wars. The predictions are consistent with available empirical evidence.     

我国城市路桥年票的合理定价与和谐关系研究

城市道路作为典型的准公共品,已经引起社会各方面的关注。文章从城市经济、路桥贷款、车辆拥有量和路桥需求三方面,研究了三个必须考虑的因素和三个必须考虑的关系对年票制合理定价的影响。主要结论是：城市居民人均收入、投资还贷额、财政收入与年票定价显著正相关,这说明成功实施年票制的城市必须考虑了市民的经济承受能力和还贷的压力;年票价格与政府市民和谐关系、政府与投资者关系和城市路桥需求有显著的相关关系。这些结果为我国年票定价中采用部分市场定价机制提供了基础。也为城市路桥合理定价中如何权衡各方的经济利益和促进社会和谐提供了相关的理论和实证支持。     

Optimal bid disclosure in patent license auctions under alternative modes of competition

The literature on patent license auctions in oligopoly assumed that the auctioneer reveals the winning bid and stressed that this gives firms an incentive to bid high in order to signal an aggressive output strategy in a downstream Cournot market game, and conversely bid low to signal acquiescent pricing in a Bertrand market game. The present paper examines the information revealed by publishing the winning or the losing or no bid, assuming an oligopoly with differentiated goods. We rank disclosure rules and find that it is not optimal for the innovator to disclose the winning bid, regardless of the mode of competition.     

Sacrifice tests for predation in a dynamic pricing model: Ordover and Willig (1981) and Cabral and Riordan (1997) meet Ericson and Pakes (1995)

To detect the presence of predatory pricing, antitrust authorities and courts routinely ask whether a firm sacrifices current profit in exchange for the expectation of higher future profit following the exit of its rival. Because predatory pricing is an inherently dynamic phenomenon, we show in this paper how to construct sacrifice tests for predatory pricing in a modern industry-dynamics framework along the lines of Ericson and Pakes (1995). In particular, we adapt the definitions of predation due to Ordover and Willig (1981) and Cabral and Riordan (1997) to this setting and construct the corresponding sacrifice tests.     

Credit Unions: Fringe Suppliers or Cournot Competitors?

Recent work has demonstrated the competitive relationship between credit unions and banks in consumer financial services. One issue underlying the nature of competition between the two, however, concerns the most appropriate way to model their interactions.Two possible approaches are the dominant-firm price-leadership model and the generalized Cournot model. In the former model, credit unions act as fringe suppliers who are price-takers in a homogeneous product market. In the latter, they possess (limited) market power. Oneway to distinguish the two is by examining the impact of credit union market shares on their pricing, as the two models imply differing effects. Our results are more consistent with the ``credit unions as fringe suppliers' view. Using a pooled cross-section time seriesof 77 small local consumer lending markets throughout the U.S., each with 10 observations over 5 years, the focus is on a loan product ex ante thought to be sold in local markets, unsecured (non-credit card) loans. For this product, increasing credit union market sharesreduces credit union loan rates, consistent with a fringe supplier hypothesis.     

Pricing strategy, quality signaling, and entry deterrence

I investigate a pricing strategy that is aimed at deterring entry by applying a two-period model of a durable-goods monopolist. There exists an incumbent that is of two types, that is, high and low quality types. They differ in terms of their R&D capabilities, and the incumbent's type is assumed to be unknown to an entrant. If the entrant decided to enter the market, Nash–Bertrand price competition ensues between the incumbent and the entrant. I show that not only limit pricing but also prestige pricing signals the incumbent's quality type, which serves to discourage entry. In the prestige pricing, the high-quality type sells the products at an intentionally higher price. I also show that although limit pricing is more desirable than prestige pricing from a social welfare viewpoint, the incumbent can still choose prestige pricing.     

MARKET POWER AND PRICE MOVEMENTS OVER THE BUSINESS CYCLE*

This paper develops and tests implications of an oligopoly‐pricing model. The model predicts that during a demand expansion, the short run competitive price is a pure strategy Nash equilibrium but in a recession, firms set prices above the competitive price. Thus, price markups over the competitive price are countercyclical. Prices set during a recession are more variable than prices set in expansions because firms employ mixed strategy pricing in recessions. The empirical analysis utilizes Hamilton's time series switching regime filter to test the predictions of the model. Fourteen out of fifteen industries have fluctuations consistent with this oligopoly‐pricing model.     

Uniform Pricing as a Barrier to Entry

This paper considers an entry game in which an incumbent firm operates in a number of markets and a potential entrant can enter multiple or all of the markets. While price discrimination has usually been thought of as a barrier to entry, in our model it is not and instead, charging a uniform price across the markets can discourage entry. Partial entry occurs when the two firms' products are highly substitutable. In this case, uniform pricing raises the profits of both the incumbent and the entrant but reduces consumer and total welfare relative to price discrimination.     

互联网金融监管之棋局

大数据时代背景下,互联网技术的突飞猛进、金融垄断的困境以及民间借贷政策的宽松为互联网金融在中国兴起提供了合适的“土壤”,作为有别于传统金融的新模式,其在中国的出现形成了一场新的棋局.在此新局中,互联网金融有不同于传统经济的风险类型--数据获取、技术缺陷、迷信速度、网络安全和权力异化,风险特征也异于传统金融--扩散快、主体脆弱、易交叉传染,而给“当局者速”带来了困惑,因此破解此迷局时,要结合其风险从交易技术、交易结构、权力契约三个层面理清互联网金融的监管体系,破解这一“迷局”促进互联网金融的进一步健康发展.     

Network effects,aftermarkets and the Coase conjecture: A dynamic Markovian approach

This paper investigates the expansion of the network of a monopolist firm that produces a durable good and is also involved in the corresponding aftermarket. We characterize the Markov Perfect Equilibrium of the continuous time dynamic game played by the monopolist and the forward-looking consumers, under the assumption that consumers benefit from the subsequent expansion of the network. The paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on the validity of the Coase conjecture, analyzing whether Coase's prediction that the monopolist serves the market in a “twinkling of an eye” remains valid in our setup. We conclude that the equilibrium network development may actually be gradual, contradicting Coase's conjecture. We find that a necessary condition for such a result is the existence of aftermarket network effects that accrue (at least partly) to the monopolist firm.     

Managing the influence of internal and external determinants on international industrial pricing strategies

In developing pricing strategies, managers typically take into account a wide array of factors, including those that are internal to the firm as well as those that are external to its operations. However, little attention has been paid to how managers consider these factors in combination and how such judgments affect their ultimate choice of pricing strategy. These questions are the focus of this study, particularly as they pertain to international pricing decisions. Drawing on key dimensions thought to influence the relative weights that pricing managers place on both internal and external factors, the study details how those relative weightings influence the ultimate strategies managers employ. Findings indicate that international experience, product technology, degree of internationalization, market share, and certain external factors influence weightings managers give to internal and external factors in the process of making international pricing decisions. Furthermore, these decision-making factors combine to affect the specific strategies pricing managers employ in determining international prices.     

The Effect of Mortgage Rate Buydowns on Housing Prices:

The model developed in this paper analyzes the effect of builder-financed FHA-VA mortgage subsidies or buydowns on the price of housing. Hedonic pricing equations are estimated for a locationally and qualitatively uniform sample of new tract development homes. The explanatory variables are vectors of physical and financial characteristics. The latter include a continuous variable for discount points paid by builders which is indicative of the magnitude of prepaid finance charges. The results indicate that a substantial portion of mortgage subsidy costs are shifted to buyers in the form of inflated housing prices.