Giving Customers Decision Rights: A Field Study of Pay-What-You-Want Pricing at a Performing Arts Theater*

Abstract

We conduct a field study at a performing arts theater offering pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing as one of several pricing options to purchase tickets. While offering PWYW in this setting introduces multiple layers of self-selection, we find PWYW attendees are not a homogeneous group. Rather, attendees have distinct identities that vary in the extent to which they view PWYW as an economic transaction or a social exchange. We also find the effect of PWYW on subsequent consumption behavior is asymmetric. PWYW attendees do not subsequently become season subscribers. However, when the PWYW option was offered for a different performance, some season subscribers to that performance canceled their season ticket subscriptions with plans to use PWYW in the future, resulting in potentially lost revenues and a smaller season subscriber base. Thus, using PWYW as part of multiple pricing strategy may be especially costly when firms rely on dedicated patronage by consumers.