Evolutionary game-theoretic model for dynamic congestion pricing in multi-class traffic networks

This paper describes an evolutionary game-theoretic learning model for dynamic congestion pricing in urban road networks, taking into account route choice stochasticity and reliability considerations, and the heterogeneity of users, in terms of their value of travel time and real-time information acquisition. The learning model represents the dynamic adjustments of users to travel cost changes which may take place in the day-to-day as well as the within-day timescales. The implementation into a simplified and a real urban road network signifies the important implications of modeling the dynamic and stochastic learning components of users’ behavior for accommodating the efficient deployment of congestion pricing schemes.     

A two-generation new product model by considering forward-looking customers: Dynamic pricing and advertising optimization

Nowadays, one of the challenges of the firm managing multi-generation products is the forward-looking behavior of customers. Anticipating the introduction of a newer generation affects the demand and sales volume of the current generation and next generation. In this research, we investigated how to efficiently structure the pricing and advertising strategies of a firm that launches a two-generation new product to a market populated by forward-looking customers. Two thresholds were determined on the advertising expenditure of Generations 1 and 2. Our analysis proposed that the optimal pricing path of Generation 1 was monotonically decreasing or increasing and, then, decreasing. The optimal pricing of Generation 2 followed a concave curve. A heuristic solution method was proposed to solve the numerical examples. Findings revealed that, with increasing the customers' forward-looking behavior, the firm's profit would decrease. In the presence of forward-looking customers, it is beneficial for the firm to reduce the price of Generation 1 and allocate more budget to advertise Generation 2. Among other results, the advertising expenditure was shown to be positively affected by the number of potential customers and advertising effectiveness. Also, the length of the planning horizon had a negative effect on the advertising expenditure. A higher discount rate could lead to lower price, while higher advertising effectiveness and length of the planning horizon would result in higher price. Further, the results showed that, with increasing the word-of-mouth advertising effectiveness, the firm should increase the advertising expenditure and decrease the price firstly and, afterwards, decrease the advertising effort and increase the price.     

On the evolution of monopoly pricing in Internet-assisted search markets

This study examines the evolution of prices in markets with Internet price-comparison search engines. The empirical study analyzes laboratory data of prices available to informed consumers, for two industry sizes and two conditions on the sample (complete and incomplete). Distributions are typically bimodal. One of the two modes of distribution, corresponding to monopoly pricing, tends to attract such pricing strategies increasingly over time. The second one, corresponding to interior pricing, follows a decreasing trend. Monopoly pricing can serve as a means of insurance against more competitive (but riskier) behavior. In fact, experimental subjects who initially earn low profits due to interior pricing are more likely to switch to monopoly pricing than subjects who experience good returns from the start.     

Upgrade pricing, market growth, and social welfare

This paper studies the monopolist's dynamic pricing strategy when introducing successive generations of a durable product. We show that when consumers are semi-anonymous or exactly identified and the innovation is minor, the firm always offers an upgrade discount to former customers. However, the discount depends only on the quality of the old product. In contrast, for moderate and major innovations, the discount depends on the qualities and costs of both the old and the new products. The market growth rate affects the firm's pricing strategy only if consumers are anonymous; furthermore, the effect on prices depends on the discount rate and whether the market growth rate is high or low. For minor innovations, social welfare is maximized if consumers are anonymous. An interesting and paradoxical result is that, when innovations are moderate or major and consumers are semi-anonymous or exactly identified, price discrimination can actually lead to higher social welfare.     

Customer-centric pricing: The surprising secret for profitability

Companies spend enormous amounts of energy and capital in creating value for customers, but less regard is given to actually capturing the value they have created. Segmentation based on buying behavior uncovers a tremendous differential in willingness to pay for subjective product attributes such as convenience, status, and quality. Purchase decisions are made through an assessment of a myriad of factors balancing perceptions of value components against price in a subtle, complex, and often sub-conscious decision matrix. Customer-centric pricing requires the simultaneous and continuous assessment of product attributes, customer perceptions, and the circumstances of time and place by listening to customers' actions. It is a means of assuring that companies assess the value they create for customers and extract that value from the marketplace.     

The changed legality of resale price maintenance and pricing implications

From 1911 until 2007, minimum resale price maintenance agreements between manufacturers and resellers were illegal under federal antitrust law. This handicapped manufacturers which sought to exert control over how their products were priced and promoted through the distribution channel. In June 2007, the United States Supreme Court—via the Leegin case—ruled that bilateral minimum resale price maintenance agreements would no longer be automatically illegal. Rather, they would be legal if their net impact is pro-competitive, and illegal only if the net impact is anti-competitive. This ruling empowers manufacturers to use resale price maintenance to create value for their customers and consumers. However, not all stakeholders—including some state legal systems—have embraced the Leegin ruling, thereby creating uncertainty regarding its final impact. Despite this uncertainty, the opportunities created by Leegin are worth exploring and acting upon. Since the Leegin ruling 3 years ago, a new landscape for resale pricing maintenance has been evolving. We discuss this landscape and the considerations for using resale price maintenance within its ambit. For many manufacturers, the chance of benefitting from Leegin outweighs any potential risks.     

Partitioned pricing: Can we always divide and prosper?

The widespread use of partitioned pricing by marketers may be the result of perceptions that it enhances the perceived value of the offer. This research identifies boundary conditions for the effectiveness of partitioned pricing by examining the role of the reasonableness of a surcharge and the need for cognition in consumers’ processing of pricing information. Three studies, each consisting of two experiments, examine the effectiveness of partitioned versus combined pricing and show that for high need for cognition persons, partitioned pricing has a more favorable effect than combined pricing when the surcharges are reasonable; these effects reverse when the surcharges are unreasonable. The studies indicate no differences between partitioned and combined pricing across surcharge conditions for low need for cognition consumers. A fourth study incorporating both reasonable and unreasonable surcharges in one experiment substantiates the conclusions of the first three studies. Finally, detailed process measures provide evidence that high versus low need for cognition persons evaluate partitioned pricing information differently in distinct surcharge conditions.     

Design and evaluation of road pricing: state-of-the-art and methodological advances

This article provides an in-depth review of the state-of-the-art and describes methodological advances in the design and evaluation of road network pricing schemes. A number of paradigm shifts from the two polar cases of the marginal social cost pricing of road traffic congestion and revenue-maximizing road toll pricing are analyzed, as induced by the need to address realistic design complexities and constraints. The crucial role of the joint consideration of pricing strategies with optimal capacity provision and several network management measures is manifested and an integrated evaluation framework is suggested to incorporate a wide range of road pricing impacts into the scheme design process.     

Uniform pricing effect: The influence of uniform pricing on product value judgement and purchase intention

Uniform pricing, which is a pricing strategy that sets a unified price for all products in the store or all products in the same category, is becoming increasingly popular over the past decades. However, scarce attention has been paid to investigating its impact on consumer behaviour. This research investigates the influence of uniform pricing on product value judgements and purchase intentions. Four studies demonstrate that uniform pricing (vs. non-uniform pricing) could induce stronger promotion perception, which leads to more positive product value judgements and purchase intentions. Moreover, price sensitivity and product involvement moderate this effect, and this effect only exists for high price-sensitive consumers and low product involvement consumers.     

The six pricing myths that kill profits

Pricing is the most important driver of profits. Pricing is also, surprisingly, the area most executives overlook when implementing initiatives to increase profits. There is a reason: Research presented in this article suggests that most executives implicitly hold on to a series of weakly held assumptions about pricing that ultimately are self-defeating. These pricing myths are that (1) costs are the basis for price setting, (2) small price changes have little impact on profits, (3) customers are highly price sensitive, (4) products are difficult to differentiate, (5) high market share leads to high profits, and (6) managing price means changing prices. This research shows how executives can overcome these misconceptions and thus implement sustainable profit improvements via pricing.     

Short-term or long-term cooperation between retailer and MCN? New launched products sales strategies in live streaming e-commerce

Nowadays, live streaming e-commerce has become popular all over the world. In this paper, we study the pricing strategy of new products when they are launched in live streaming considering the consumer uncertainty and network externalities. We characterize the impact of live streaming into two dimensions, emotional support and information support, and investigate how those two dimensions impact the choice of cooperation types and the revenue distribution between the retailer and MCN (Multi-Channel Network). Using a two-stage vertical model, we find that, with the low consumer uncertainty, the MCN induces the retailer to choose the cooperation type depending on the emotional support level, but with the high consumer uncertainty, it depends on the information support level. For new-product pricing strategy, whether to adopt the penetration pricing strategy or the skimming pricing strategy depends on the impact of live streaming, the consumer uncertainty and network externalities. Interestingly, the commission price does not increase with the consumer uncertainty. An important implication for the retailer is that, reducing consumer uncertainty may not be beneficial to the total profit.     

基于寡头定价的动态频谱接入控制

为了解决频谱接入中主用户和次级用户交互信息过程复杂的问题,提出了一种基于寡头定价的动态频谱接入控制算法。该算法利用博弈论建立寡头定价模型,通过控制次级用户的频谱接入过程以实现系统收益的最大化,算法只需一次用户信息交互,且无需建立公共控制信道,网络拓扑结构简单。通过比较帕累托最优与全局最优的关系,实验计算与性能分析证明了该算法的有效性。     

中国演出产品定价机制及完善对策探究

在文化消费多样化和移动互联网技术兴起的发展趋势下,中国演艺市场面临着高成本、低回报的经营困境,作为新兴产业的演艺行业,不管是运行秩序还是行业规则方面,都有需要完善的地方。以演出产品定价为主要研究视角,提出了演出产品定价存在机制不完善、价格水平整体偏高、炒票现象严重等问题,并从建立演出产品价格管理体系、实行差异化定价策略、科学管理演艺市场3个方面提出了建议。笔者将鲍莫尔的病态成本理论作为演艺产品差异化定价的理论依据,菲利普·莱斯利的百老汇价格歧视作为将科学管理手段应用于演出产品价格管理的例证,对演艺产品定价机制及完善对策进行了初步探究。     

Information asymmetry, pricing strategy and firm's performance in the retailer- multi-channel manufacturer supply chain

In this research paper, we assume a retailer-multi-channel manufacturer (with online and traditional retail channels) supply chain where both the multi-channel manufacturer and the retailer have private information about the state of consumer demand. In this setting, we examine the effect of an information sharing strategy on both firms' performance. Our results show that the multi-channel manufacturer always benefits from an information sharing strategy. When the product is highly compatible with the online channel, information sharing becomes much more valuable to the multi-channel manufacturer. On the other hand, the retailer's performance is not impacted by an information sharing strategy. Thus, a bargaining model is utilized to implement profit sharing for the multi-channel manufacturer and retailer so that an information sharing equilibrium can be reached. Based on our results, we derive optimal market strategies and identify probable paths of future research.     

Name-your-own-price as participative pricing strategy: a review of the literature from 2001–2017

ABSTRACT

Name-your-own-price (NYOP), a pricing strategy often referred to as a reverse auction, is a participative pricing mechanism in which consumers have a relatively high control over the price they pay for a product or service. In an NYOP mechanism, buyers generate the final price of a product or service when they bid above an unrevealed threshold price set by the seller. Although NYOP as a pricing strategy was previously investigated, the literature remains scarce and fragmented. This paper attempts to assemble the relevant findings of this pricing strategy, by systematically reviewing all publications from 2001 to 2017. We explored the impacts of this mechanism for companies and consumers, such as increased profit for companies and higher savings for consumers, reduced competition for companies and increased satisfaction for consumers. We also highlighed the best practices of NYOP, such as the bidding practices, threshold price, and willingness to pay.     

人民币国际计价功能的特点研究

随着中国对外开放程度不断提高,人民币逐渐走出国门,特别是党的十八大以来,人民币加入特别提款权(SDR),其国际货币的地位初步奠定。目前,人民币已成为全球第五大支付货币,全球已有60多个央行或货币当局将人民币纳入外汇储备。本文结合人民币国际计价功能的发展,对其特点进行了具体分析。研究发现:人民币计价功能的区域性特征明显,人民币在国际金融计价中的比重增长较快,增加人民币供给为其实现国际计价功能提供了有力保障,互联网和移动支付是实现人民币计价功能的重要通道。     

The power and peril of board interlocks

In order to compete, firms must constantly gather and assess information that will help them identify and evaluate emerging opportunities. Their social context is instrumental in determining what information they have to work with and how they might make sense of and act upon that information. Unfortunately, many firms allow themselves to become under-connected, which isolates them from new sources of information, or over-reliant on just a few connections, creating a bottleneck for the flow of information. Herein, we describe how these problems manifest themselves among the network of interlocked directors, which is created when directors of firms sit on multiple boards. This network is so vast and complex that fully understanding the position and structure of a given firm's board interlocks remains elusive. Toward solving this problem, we offer five keys to developing a board with effective interlocks, as well as three cautions regarding how board interlocks could potentially hurt firms.     

Drivers of dynamic learning and dynamic competitive capabilities in international strategic alliances

Research on dynamic competitive capabilities (DCCs) is critical for businesses to operate effectively in a rapidly changing environment. The driving forces of the dynamic learning mechanism (DLM) play a decisive role in the evolution of DCCs that the resource-based view (RBV) has failed to clearly identify. By engaging in an empirical study with a sample of 363 strategic alliances in Taiwanese companies, this paper shows that learning intent and embedded learning positively influence the drivers of DLM, such as manager integration power, external linkages, codification of experience, and ambiguity, to both strongly and positively affect DCC development in high-level management of international strategic alliances.     

A dynamic model of reference price and expected quality

A number of recent papers have developed normative implications of the concept of reference price. In this paper, we extend that literature to incorporate the relationship between expected quality and reference price. We consider the case of a monopolist who makes time-varying decisions regarding price and product quality. Our results suggest that when the effect of a loss (price greater than reference price and product quality less than expected quality) on demand is greater than or equal to that of a corresponding gain, it is optimal for a monopolist to have constant price and product quality levels. When the effect of a gain on demand is greater than that of a corresponding loss, however, we find that it is optimal to maintain cyclical pricing and product quality policies.     

Effects of pricing on Internet user behavior

The INternet Demand EXperiment (INDEX) conducts experiments to measure demand for quality-differentiated Internet access as a function of bandwidth, traffic volume, applications, and pricing structure. This paper presents an overview of results based on aggregated data from five pricing experiments. In these experiments, pricing is based either on time, volume, a combination of both, or a flat-rate buy out option. Quality of Service (QoS) is differentiated by varying bandwidth for incoming and outgoing traffic. After describing the experimental design and characterizing our subject pool using demographic data, we examine the change in service usage by comparing the five experiments in terms of traffic generation, QoS selection, and expenditure.