On the strategic value of risk management

This article examines how firms facing volatile input prices and holding some degree of market power in their product market link their risk management and their production or pricing strategies. This issue is relevant in many industries ranging from manufacturing to energy retailing, where firms that are rendered “risk averse” by financial frictions decide on and commit to their hedging strategies before their product market strategies. We find that commitment to hedging modifies the pricing and production strategies of firms. This strategic effect is channeled through the risk-adjusted expected cost, i.e., the expected marginal cost under the probability measure induced by shareholders' “risk aversion”. It has opposite effects depending on the nature of product market competition: commitment to hedging toughens quantity competition while it softens price competition. Finally, not committing to the hedging position can never be an equilibrium outcome: committing is always a best response to non-committing. In the Hotelling model, committing is a dominant strategy for all firms.     

Barriers to real-time electricity pricing: Evidence from New Zealand

This paper studies the introduction of real-time electricity pricing in the New Zealand residential retail market to understand why its market share remained below 1.25%. We use rich panel data of all retail switches between 2014 and 2018 and an unexpected wholesale price spike to study adoption and attrition. Exploiting the staggered roll-out of real-time pricing in different locations we find that attrition decreases with experience. We also find that prospective adopters are present biased. The combination of these findings explains why adoption stalled and shows that wholesale price spikes pose a serious threat to widespread adoption of real-time pricing.     

The effect of competition on pricing and product positioning: Evidence from wholesale club entry

This paper empirically examines incumbents’ reactions to market entry along price and non-price dimensions in the example of wholesale warehouse entry into grocery retail markets. Leveraging a detailed retail panel spanning 2001–2011 and a novel dataset documenting opening and closing dates and locations of all Costco warehouse clubs, we classify incumbent retailers’ strategic responses (e.g., pricing, assortment) by the storability of product categories, controlling for persistent systematic differences across retailer–product combinations. We find that retailers are substantially affected by increased competition from wholesale club warehouse openings and in response increase the variability of their prices, consistent with adoption of the Hi–Lo pricing strategy. In addition, incumbent retailers’ strategic responses differ significantly across storability levels: They are more likely to increase prices and reduce assortments for highly storable products and decrease prices and increase assortments for less storable products. We extend our analysis by exploiting the spatial variations in our data and analyzing divergent market effects across geographical areas. We find significant geospatial differences in these strategic responses.     

Personalized pricing and price fairness

Mobile web technology enables discriminatory, or personalized, pricing for many more consumer good categories than has traditionally been the case. Setting prices according to individual valuations, however, generates adverse consumer reaction unless consumers are invited to participate in the price-formation process. Consumer perceptions of price fairness are key to the sustainability of any discriminatory pricing regime. Perceptions of price fairness, in turn, are hypothesized to be shaped by “self-interested inequity aversion” in which prices tend to be regarded as unfair, and purchase probabilities fall, if others are perceived to pay a lower price, while prices tend to be regarded as more fair, and consumers more likely to purchase, if inequity is in the buyers favor. Our experimental data also shows that the implications of inequity aversion for sellers can be at least partially reversed if consumers are allowed to participate in the price-formation process by negotiating the price they pay. The primary implication of our findings is that, in order to be viable, any system of discriminatory pricing for consumer goods should invite consumers to have a stake in the price they pay. Such participatory pricing may provide one way out of the current trap of Hi–Lo, or promotional, pricing that neither retailers nor manufacturers regard as sustainable.     

Vertical relations,pass-through,and market definition: Evidence from grocery retailing

We examine how different pass-through rates from input prices to retail prices and different vertical contracts affect upstream market definition. Simple theoretical considerations suggest that vertical restraints induce higher pass-through rates and thus lead to a larger upstream market definition when compared to linear wholesale pricing, given that contracts with linear pricing are associated with lower pass-through rates under imperfect competition. Data from grocery retailing is used to quantify the empirical implications of our theoretical assertion. We find that resale price maintenance leads to larger upstream market definitions than linear pricing. We therefore advise competition authorities to carefully model vertical market structures, whenever they expect incomplete pass-through to be important.     

Effects of New Product Pricing on the Evolution of Market Structure

Conventional wisdom suggests that market structure is a determinant of marketing strategy; however, in the case of market pioneers, no market structure exists prior to product introduction. William Redmond examines strategy influences on market structure by assessing the effects of pioneer firms' initial price strategies (penetration pricing versus skim pricing) on the development of subsequent market concentration during the growth stage of the product life cycle. The article describes the analysis of longitudinal data, leading to the detection of significant differences in the evolution of concentration resulting from the different price strategies. Markets pioneered by skim pricers tended to have lower levels of concentration during the growth stage but rose to levels comparable to penetration markets by the onset of market maturity.     

Listing Price, Time on Market, and Ultimate Selling Price: Causes and Effects of Listing Price Changes

Information about price changes during a home's marketing period is typically missing from data used to investigate the listing price, selling price, and selling time relationship. This paper incorporates price revision information into the study of this relationship. Using a maximum-likelihood probit model, we examine the determinants of list price changes and find evidence consistent with the theory of pricing behavior under demand uncertainty. Homes most likely to undergo list price changes are those with high initial markups and vacant homes, while homes with unusual features are the least likely to experience a price revision. We also explore the impact of missing price change information on estimating a representative model of house price and market time. Our results suggest that mispricing the home in the initial listing is costly to the seller in both time and money. Homes with large percentage changes in list price take longer to sell and ultimately sell at lower prices.     

零售商的风险规避特性和公平偏好对绿色供应链运作的影响

针对市场需求的不确定性,本文通过建立风险规避型零售商与风险中性供应商的Stackelberg博弈模型,供应商为主导者,综合考虑零售商风险规避特性和公平偏好心理对该供应链运作产生的影响。研究发现,当风险规避型零售商不具有公平意识时,零售商的风险规避程度与供应商的批发价、绿色创新投入水平以及供应商和供应链整体的效用正相关;供应商的绿色成本系数的大小可影响风险规避程度对产品售价以及零售商效用的影响。当风险规避型零售商具有公平偏好时,零售商的公平偏好负向影响产品售价、批发价以及供应商绿色投入水平和供应商效用;零售商公平偏好对零售商以及供应链效用产生的影响受到零售商风险规避程度的影响。     

Optimal pricing and advertising strategy for introducing a new business product with threat of competitive entry

The problem of optimal joint pricing and advertising decision making for a new product facing potential competitive entry has received inadequate attention. We propose a model that attempts to find the optimal price-advertising frontier in the face of potential competitive entry that maximizes total discounted profits for pre- and post-entry periods. We find that a firm would charge the price that equates price elasticity to marginal revenue product of advertising (as predicted by [Dorfman, R. and Steiner, P.O. (1954), Optimal Advertising and Optimal Quality, American Economic Review, 44(5), 826-836.]) only when the potential effects of pricing and advertising on its market share are not considered. Under optimal conditions, aware that market share is subject to erosion, the firm charges a somewhat lower price than the profit maximizing price, and sets an advertisement expense that is somewhat higher than the profit-maximizing advertising level as predicted by Cournot's monopolistic setting. We illustrate the applicability of our model using business product examples taken from several industries including operating systems, software, pharmaceutical, and telephone switching. Directions for future research with implications for B2B managers (for example, the possible effects of preannouncement to forestall competitive entry) are discussed.     

Peak-Load Versus Discriminatory Pricing: Evidence from the Golf Industry

Using a unique dataset on the golf industry we analyze the weekend premium in golf course fees. Since both peak-load pricing and price discrimination may be at play, we attempt to separate these two forms of pricing. We find that as competition increases there is a decrease in the weekend premium, which we attribute to price discrimination. Additionally, we find that resort courses and courses that are heavily dependent on tourism have less differential pricing, which we attribute to less peak demand and less peak-load pricing.     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Oligopoly when Markets are Covered*

We analyze oligopolistic third-degree price discrimination relative to uniform pricing when markets are covered. Pricing equilibria are critically determined by supply-side features such as the number of firms and their marginal cost differences. It follows that each firm's Lerner index under uniform pricing is equal to the weighted harmonic mean of the firm's relative margins under discriminatory pricing. Uniform pricing then lowers average prices and raises consumer surplus. We can calculate the gain in consumer surplus and loss in firms' profits from uniform pricing based only on the market data of the discriminatory equilibrium (i.e., prices and quantities).     

The impact of shopbot use on prices and price dispersion: Evidence from online book retailing

Internet price search tools, notably shopbots, have reduced consumers' search costs for price and product characteristics. While a variety of analytic models predict that increased consumer search will lower price levels among competing retailers, there is no consensus in the literature as to how price dispersion will change with increased consumer search. Moreover, there are no papers that have empirically tested these predictions using direct observation of variation in shopbot use over time.This paper examines the impact of changes in shopbot use over time on pricing behavior in the Internet book market. We do this by combining price and clickstream data collected from August 1999 to July 2001 — a period of rapid expansion in shopbot use. We find that a 1% increase in shopbot use is correlated with a $0.41 decrease in price levels and a 1.1% decrease in price dispersion.     

Retail Mergers and Food Prices: Evidence from France

This paper analyzes the impact of a merger in the French supermarket industry on food prices. Using consumer panel data, we compare the changes in prices for merging and rival firms in affected and comparison markets. We use a novel definition of affected markets when some firms have a local pricing strategy and others a more centralized pricing strategy. We find that prices increase significantly following the merger, and that the merging firms lose market shares. For the rivals, the price increases are larger in local markets, in which concentration increased and differentiation changed after the merger.     

Commodity price inflation, retail pass-through and market power

When commodity prices rise, wholesalers and retailers of products derived from basic commodities respond by passing along at least a portion of the price increase to consumers. In this paper we examine whether firms respond differently to positive commodity price shocks than to negative commodity price shocks; that is, whether commodity price volatility alters market power. We exploit recent volatility in food commodity prices over the period 2007-2010 to investigate how commodity price shocks translate into market power in two different vertically-structured food product industries: potatoes and fluid milk. For potatoes, we find both wholesale and retail market power decreases (increases) during periods of rising (falling) commodity prices. Moreover, price-cost margins widen a substantially greater degree in response to negative shocks than margins narrow in response to positive shocks, indicating that commodity price volatility increases market power. For fluid milk, we find that market power likewise declines during periods of rising commodity prices; however, market power does not significantly change during periods of falling commodity prices, suggesting that commodity price volatility decreases market power.     

Best Practices for New Product Pricing: Impact on Market Performance and Price Level under Different Conditions

To date, research on new product pricing has predominantly been approached as a choice between market skimming and penetration pricing. Despite calls for research that addresses other complexities in new product pricing, empirical research responding to these calls remains scarce. This paper examines three managerial price‐setting practices for new products, i.e., value‐informed, competition‐informed, and cost‐informed pricing. By engaging in these practices, managers can develop and compare quantifications in order to attain an introduction price for the product. The authors draw on consumer price perception literature, Monroe's pricing discretion model, and numerical cognition literature to develop hypotheses about the impact of price‐setting practices on new product market performance and price level. By studying the effects on market performance and price level, the paper provides insights that may help explain the growth of new products and address the problems of underpricing. The hypotheses are tested in a management survey of 144 production and service companies. The results indicate which pricing practices are superior for the achievement of either higher market performance or higher prices in specific product and market conditions. Whereas value‐informed pricing has an unambiguous positive impact on relative price level and market performance, the results also suggest that in many cases engaging in value‐informed pricing is not enough. The effects of cost‐informed and competition‐informed pricing may differ depending upon the objective (market performance or higher prices), product conditions (product advantage and relative product costs), and market condition (competitive intensity). Engaging in inappropriate pricing practices leads to a decline in new product performance. Moreover, bad pricing practices make the positive effect of product advantage on the outcome variables disappear. The latter finding suggests that companies can jeopardize their efforts and investments in the new product development process if they engage in the wrong price‐setting practices. The findings imply that managers should consider different factors in new product pricing. First, when launching a new product, they should determine their explicit pricing objective, either stressing market performance or a higher price level. To determine the most appropriate pricing practices, however, they should next assess their situation in terms of product advantage, relative product costs, and competitive intensity. Together with the pricing objective, these conditions determine the best pricing practice. On a higher level, the findings imply that companies should invest in knowledge development in order to engage in the appropriate pricing practices for each product launch.     

Are pricing policies an impediment to the success of customer solutions?

In an era of declining pricing power and increased global competition, customized solutions appear to be an effective way to build competitive advantages without the debilitating effects of price competition. Solutions involve provision of an integrated combination of goods and services that are designed to meet a business customer's specific needs. Premium prices and higher margins can be extracted by solution providers, who now have considerable incentives to design and market innovative solutions for their customers. We examine the applicability of various pricing frameworks and pricing practices in the context of two industries — business process outsourcing and power generation equipments. Our interviews suggest that firms predominantly use traditional pricing strategies; new strategies for solution pricing are only emerging; and, successful firms are currently using hybrid pricing models. We find that the solutions that we observed among practitioners are not what theory would suggest as true solutions but what would be described by theory as bundled products. We also find that solutions are in the eye of the beholder, i.e., if customers can de-bundle offerings, they are not true solutions. We extend our findings to academic theory and to the practice of developing and pricing solutions.     

Do House Price Levels Anticipate Subsequent Price Changes within Metropolitan Areas?

This research examines the relationship between hedonically controlled housing price levels and subsequent changes in those prices across locations within MSAs. Are areas with a high price relative to an “imputed rent” paying for higher appreciation? In an efficient market (e.g., Gordon Growth Model), as fundamentals (impute rent) differ across locations and change over time, anticipation of these should generate a positive correlation between (residual) price levels and subsequent price changes. We undertake these tests in four different MSAs using a panel of repeat‐sale house price indices that have been scaled to price levels with the hedonic attributes of the house and ZIP code. In three markets we find that identical houses in higher priced ZIP codes subsequently appreciate faster. In one market we find that there is little statistical difference.     

Monopoly Rents and Price Fixing in Betting Markets

Betting markets provide an ideal environment in which to examinemonopoly power due to the availability of detailed information on product pricing. In this paper we argue that the pricing strategies of companies in the U.K. betting industry are likely to be an important source of monopoly rents, particularly in the market for forecast bets. Pricing in these markets are shown to be explicitly coordinated. Further, price information is asymmetrically biased in favor of producers. We find evidence, based on U.K. data, that pricing of CSF bets is characterized by a significantly higher markup than pricing of single bets. Although this differential can in part be explained by the preferences of bettors, it is reasonable to attribute a significant part of the differential as being due to monopoly power.     

The Pricing of Seasoned Equity Offerings: Evidence from REITs

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been a very active sector in the capital market over the last few years. This paper examines the pricing of seasoned equity offers by equity REITs during 1991–1996. Consistent with Parsons and Raviv's model, we find that SEOs by REITs are underpriced with respect to both the closing price on the day before and the closing price on the day of the offer. Underpricing depends on the institutional ownership of the firm's common stock. Issues by firms with higher institutional ownership are more underpriced for post-1990 REITs. Further, consistent with the notion that theories of IPO pricing apply to SEOs as well, the underpricing of SEOs is a function of the issue size and of the underwriter's reputation.     

Public pricing under imperfect competition

Existing literature on second-best pricing assumes that regulatory control encompasses all industries subject to distortion. This paper extends the theory in a game-theoretic framework to incorporate market power outside the regulated sector. We find that in this situation, price always exceeds marginal cost in the public firm and that the profit constraint for the public firm need not be binding. In addition, the existence of pricing distortions outside the regulated sector can actually increase welfare.