Cost-based pricing: Behavioral aspects of price decisions for capital goods

Some empirical research is reported upon the question, whether the type of cost calculation has a significant influence on suppliers' price decisions in capital goods markets. Experimental findings indicate that highly aggregated cost information (full cost accounting) effects ceteris paribus higher offering prices than disaggregated cost information (complete transparency of cost structure). A complex causal model of price decisions in this field is developed which is capable of giving further insights into the empirical effects of psychological variables in the price decision process.