滞留成本、竞争性定价歧视和定价机制选择

在很多市场环境下,消费者重复消费同一种商品会产生效用折扣或者消费者喜欢尝试不同的商品特性,因此消费者追求消费多样化,重复消费同一种商品会产生滞留成本。文章采用两期动态博弈框架,研究滞留成本的存在对于企业竞争性歧视定价行为和市场绩效的影响,此后又进一步研究了企业的定价机制选择问题。文章的研究结果表明:(1)在歧视定价机制下,企业会奖励忠诚的消费者,即企业会对重复购买自己产品的消费者(忠诚消费者)给予价格优惠,而对新顾客索取高价;(2)与统一定价相比,歧视性定价降低了企业利润和社会福利,增加了消费者剩余;(3)当企业可以在歧视定价和统一定价两种机制之间进行选择时,每个企业选择歧视性定价机制是均衡结果。     

消费者寻求多样化、拥塞效应和厂商歧视 定价竞争

在一些同时存在消费者寻求多样化购买和拥塞效应的行业,寡头厂商广泛使用基于消费者购买历史进行歧视定价的商业模式,文章建立了动态博弈模型针对这类行业和商业模式进行了深入研究.研究结果表明厂商实施歧视定价源于消费者寻求多样化购买,而且消费者寻求多样化和拥塞效应会导致厂商每一期产生"默契合谋".与统一定价相比,歧视定价会增加消费者福利,降低社会总福利.进一步的定价策略选择研究发现,寡头厂商都会选择获利较少的歧视性定价策略,陷入"囚徒困境"的境地.对于文章所研究的行业,厂商应该利用信息技术,积极使用这种定价策略,而公共政策不应过多地干预.     

苏宁易购的家用电器定价策略分析

价格竞争是电商市场的重要利器，在白热化的电商市场竞争中，苏宁易购利用价格策略在家用电器的电商市场中不断稳固自己的市场地位。本文通过对影响苏宁易购定价的竞争者定价策略、实体店定价策略、物流配送能力和采购能力四大影响因素和现有定价策略的分析，提出完善苏宁易购定价的四大对策，即充分考虑消费者需求、充分研究消费者购物行为、充分研究竞争者定价和完善线上一线下产品定价策略。     

火车票定价与社会福利

一般认为火车票市场之所以存在“倒票”都是因为价格管制的结果。价格管制导致了市场中存在套利机会,但是本文应用一个动态博弈模型论证了:对于火车票这种特殊商品,即使价格升高到供求均衡价格,依然可能存在套利机会;单纯地提高价格不仅不能消除“倒票”行为,而且损害了低收入消费者的福利。本文提出了一种差别定价方式———两期定价方法,可以驱逐市场中的“套利者”;同时,恰当的两期定价还可增进社会福利。     

数字经济背景下电商平台差别定价行为规制研究

互联网时代数字经济的发展已然成为一种新趋势。电商平台应在追求技术领先的同时兼顾社会效益,然而,本是用来改善用户体验、提升企业经营效率的大数据却俨然成为了打破线上交易平衡的工具。社会转型、消费者黏性过高且维权意识薄弱、互联网行业垄断、企业忽视社会责任及立法不完善等方面共同引发了平台不合理差别定价行为。基于中国传统文化伦理审思,从根源上解决平台不合理差别定价行为,增强消费者维权意识,督促企业积极履行社会责任,完善立法势在必行。     

关于寡头垄断企业定价的一个博弈分析

价格竞争是寡头垄断市场竞争的主要手段，本文以“价格战”现象为研究背景，在寡头企业产品差异化的基础上，通过运用防降价均衡博弈模型来分析寡头垄断市场上寡头企业之问的价格竞争策略，最终由防降价均衡模型得出稳定的均衡价格而不会受到竞争对手降价的威胁，即寡头企业的最佳定价策略；从而能够有效地避免“价格战”及其所导致的寡头企业的恶性竞争，对寡头企业如何实施产品定价策略具有重要意义。     

参考价格与消费者的价格感知

众多的理论与实践研究都证明，消费者内心的价格标准——参考价格是决定其价格感知和购买行为的核心因素，研究参考价格对企业合理定价、与消费者沟通价格信息、开展价格促销具有十分重要的指导意义，文章对西方学者近几十年来的关于参考价格和消费者价格感知方面的理论与实证研究进行了系统的总结，并讨论了这些研究对我国学者及管理者的启示。     

互联网知识付费定价问题及对策研究

在当下信息爆炸的时代,消费者知识焦虑不断增加,互联网知识付费自产生以来迅速发展。但由于知识产品的特殊性、定价方式多样存在很多定价方面的问题,本文介绍了当下主要的三种定价模型,并分析了现阶段定价模式存在的问题,如成本和收益无法量化、没有完整的供求体系以及定价不准等问题。提出了引入消费者知识付费产品匹配概念的协商式定价模型,并将其与现有定价模型对比,分别对消费者购买行为、知识生产者定价、平台运营模式提出对策和建议。     

网络外部性与基于行为的区别定价

近年来,基于行为的区别定价成为区别定价领域研究的热点,但是这方面的文献却鲜有涉及到市场中存在着网络外部性的情形。在理性预期的假设下,本文通过一个两阶段双寡头博弈模型分析了网络外部性与基于行为的区别定价对子博弈精炼纳什均衡的影响。在成熟市场上,网络外部性会对具有不同初始市场份额的厂商产生不同影响;在新兴市场上,无论厂商采取何种定价策略,网络外部性都会加剧市场上的竞争,导致厂商利润下降。与统一定价下的子博弈精炼纳什均衡相比,基于行为的区别定价会加剧竞争从而导致厂商利润的下降,但是会造成较多社会福利的无谓损失。     

登山者的消费迷途——山底与山上商家定价决策的博弈分析

作为登山的旅行者,是会选择在山底就购买好山上用品,还是会选择上山之后再买?本文将从消费者通常认为的山底价格比山上便宜的惯性思维出发,提出在现实登山中存在的山底商家定价高于山上的现象,并试图运用博弈论的知识进行初步解释。认为在现实中,由于山底商家在定价上具有先发优势,加之登山旅行者的惯性思维对消费者传播误导信息,造成了山底商家定价高于山上商家。     

TALKING,SEARCHING, AND PRICING*

I study the implications of interpersonal communication for incentives for consumers to acquire information and firms’ pricing behavior. Firms market a homogeneous product and choose its price; consumers acquire price information at some cost to themselves. Also, each consumer accesses the information acquired by a sample of other consumers—interpersonal communication. An exogenous increase in the level of interpersonal communication decreases the information that consumers acquire, and, when search costs are low, firms price less aggressively. In an extension, consumers may choose to invest in interpersonal communication at some cost. A decrease in the costs of interpersonal communication decreases firms’ competition.     

Behaviour-based price discrimination with cross-group externalities

Two platforms compete for heterogeneous firms and consumers. Platforms are allowed to discriminate prices on the consumers’ side according to their past purchase behaviour. The findings of the paper depend on two dimensions: the relative cross-side externalities and the consumer discounting relative to platform discounting. Price competition is strengthened in the poaching phase compared to the case where a uniform price is charged in both sides, whereas the early price competition is relaxed if firms exhibit weaker externalities than consumers and if the latter discount sufficiently the future. The overall effect on inter-temporal profits of platforms is negative, but consumers might be harmed by BBPD when they discount sufficiently the future. Finally, depending on consumers’ discounting, total welfare may increase or decrease going from the uniform pricing to the discriminatory pricing.     

Salience and horizontal differentiation

I study a horizontal differentiation model in which one of two attributes of a product, product fit and price, is more salient for a consumer than the other and different consumers can find a different attribute salient. The attribute that is more salient is determined by relative differences between the two products and is determined endogenously as a result of firms' pricing strategies. High (low) marginal costs soften (toughen) price competition between firms. Pass-through rates are greater than 1 for some parameter values. Both industry- and firm-level cost increases may be beneficial for firms.     

Market share dynamics in a duopoly model with word-of-mouth communication

We analyze dynamic price competition in a homogeneous goods duopoly, where consumers exchange information via word-of-mouth communication. A fraction of consumers, who do not learn any new information, remain locked-in at their previous supplier in each period. We analyze Markov perfect equilibria in which firms use mixed pricing strategies. Market share dynamics are driven by the endogenous price dispersion. Depending on the parameters, we obtain different ‘classes’ of dynamics. When firms are impatient, there is a tendency towards equal market shares. When firms are patient, there are extended intervals of market dominance, interrupted by sudden changes in the leadership position.     

Optimal pricing when rational consumers anticipate monitoring cost

This article considers a monopolistic firm’s optimal pricing decision over two periods among dynamic pricing, preannounced pricing and single pricing. In the models, consumers rationally determine whether to exhibit strategic waiting by weighing their costs against prospectively lower price. Our analysis yields three main results. First, single pricing that completely eliminates strategic waiting surely would be dominated by intertemporal pricing when facing rational consumers. Second, preannounced pricing may actually yield lower revenue than dynamic pricing when considering its effect on the reduction of consumer monitoring cost. Only when monitoring costs under dynamic pricing and under preannounced pricing are equal, is firm revenue weakly greater under preannounced pricing than under dynamic pricing. Third, in dynamic pricing equilibrium, increasing monitoring cost may increase firm revenue, consumer surplus and social welfare simultaneously.     

Do small pecuniary incentives motivate residential peak energy reductions? Experimental evidence

This article evaluates demand-side interventions aimed at reducing residential consumption during the peak energy periods. The interventions were applied to a sample of high-income households and included a set of text message reminders advising participants to reduce electricity use during peak hours. One group of participants received accompanying intra-day increases in peak-hour kWh rates, while another group of participants did not receive any price incentives. We find that intra-day price increases, though small in absolute magnitude, produced significant reductions in peak energy use. Reductions in use, as compared to a control group, were significantly higher among the pricing group compared to the group only receiving text messages, suggesting that pricing played a central role in influencing behaviour. Our results contribute to ongoing policy discussion about the effect of dynamic pricing on consumer energy demand.     

Consumer flexibility,data quality and location choice

We analyze firms’ location choices in a Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity, along addresses and transport cost parameters (flexibility). Firms can price discriminate based on perfect data on consumer addresses and (possibly) imperfect data on consumer flexibility. We show that firms’ location choices depend on how strongly consumers differ in flexibility. Precisely, when consumers are relatively homogeneous, equilibrium locations are socially optimal regardless of the quality of customer flexibility data. However, when consumers are relatively differentiated, firms make socially optimal location choices only when customer flexibility data becomes perfect. These results are driven by the optimal strategy of a firm on its turf, monopolization or market-sharing, which in turn depends on consumer heterogeneity in flexibility. Our analysis is motivated by the availability of customer data, which allows firms to practice third-degree price discrimination based on both consumer characteristics relevant in spatial competition, addresses and transport cost parameters.     

An experimental study of price dispersion

We report an experiment examining a simple clearinghouse model that generates price dispersion. According to this model, price dispersion arises because of consumer heterogeneity—some consumers are “informed” and simply buy from the firm offering the lowest price, while the remaining consumers are “captive” and shop based on considerations other than price. In our experiment we observe substantial and persistent price dispersion. We find that, as predicted, an increase in the fraction of informed consumers leads to more competitive pricing for all consumers. We also find, as predicted, that when more firms enter the market, prices to informed consumers become more competitive while prices to captive customers become less competitive. Thus, our experiment provides strong support for the model's comparative static predictions about how changes in market structure affect pricing.     

Location choices and third‐degree spatial price discrimination

This paper studies how firms choose their product differentiation levels when they engage in third‐degree price discrimination in the following product market competition in a location‐price model. We show that firms will not choose to locate at the two endpoints if different consumer groups have similar sizes. Hence, the principle of maximum differentiation does not hold, resulting in a more intense product market price competition. Only if the size of one group of consumers is sufficiently larger than that of the other group, would firms make their products as differentiated as possible by choosing the two endpoints as their locations.     

Incentive regulation in local telecommunications: The effects on price markups

The governing bodies of the telecommunications industry instituted a major shift from rate of return to price cap regulation in an effort to foster competition and improve efficiency. This paper focuses on the local exchange market and examines the price markup before and after the implementation of price cap regulation to measure the effects of the change on consumer welfare. The average price markup increased slightly after price cap regulation; however, the average price decreased, indicating that consumers benefited without firms losing from the regulatory shift.