{"title":"Discrete Pricing and Market Fragmentation: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets","authors":"Yong Chao, Chengxi Yao, Mao Ye","doi":"10.1257/AER.P20171046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/AER.P20171046","url":null,"abstract":"Security trading now fragments into more than ten almost identical stock exchanges in the United States. We show that discrete pricing is one economic force that prevents the consolidation of trading volume. The uniform one-cent tick size (minimum price variation), imposed by the SEC's Rule 612, leads to more dispersed trading for lower priced securities. When a security reverse splits, its price increases and relative tick size (one cent divided by the price) decreases. We find that reverse splits consolidate trading of securities, using securities with identical underlying fundamentals that do not reverse split as the control group.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"302 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131819627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pricing When Customers Have Limited Attention","authors":"Tamer Boyacı, Yalçın Akçay","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2741088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2741088","url":null,"abstract":"We study the optimal pricing problem of a firm facing customers with limited attention and capability to process information about the value (quality) of the offered products. We model customer choice based on the theory of rational inattention in the economics literature, which enables us to capture not only the impact of true qualities and prices, but also the intricate effects of customer’s prior beliefs and cost of information acquisition and processing. We formulate the firm’s price optimization problem and characterize the pricing and revenue implications of customer’s limited attention. We test the robustness of our results under various modelling generalizations such as prices signaling quality and customer heterogeneity, and study extensions such as multiple products, competition, and joint inventory and pricing decisions. We also show that using alternative pricing policies that ignore the limited attention of customers or their ability to allocate this attention judiciously can potentially lead to significant profit losses for the firm. We discuss the managerial implications of our key findings and prescribe insights regarding information provision and product positioning.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121336192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pricing Strategies Under Behavioral Observational Learning in Social Networks","authors":"Liangfei Qiu, Andrew Whinston","doi":"10.1111/POMS.12693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/POMS.12693","url":null,"abstract":"The increasing pervasiveness of social networks allows users to share purchase behaviors with their online friends. In the present study, we examine optimal pricing strategies of a monopolistic firm using an analytical model that accounts for behavioral observational learning in social networks. We show that a seller could potentially control the information available to future customers and induce behavioral observational learning by using an information-revealing pricing strategy. This result suggests that offering introductory discounts is not always an effective method to boost purchases in social networks. It could prevent the behavioral observational learning that would increase future customers’ willingness to pay.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"118 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127328058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Online Appendix to 'When Customers Anticipate Liquidation Sales: Managing Operations Under Financial Distress'","authors":"J. Birge, Rodney P. Parker, M. X. Wu, S. A. Yang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2896581","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2896581","url":null,"abstract":"This is the online appendix for When Customers Anticipate Liquidation Sales: Managing Operations under Financial Distress. \u0000The full paper is available here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2652994.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115166289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Add-On Pricing Interacts with Distribution Contracts","authors":"Xianjun Geng, Y. Tan, Lai Wei","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2880474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2880474","url":null,"abstract":"With the rise of the Internet economy, an increasing number of firms are offering their core products through online platforms, but retail add†ons directly to consumers. Meanwhile, many online platforms have also started adopting the agency (model) contract, where the upstream firms decide the retail prices of products while the downstream platforms take a predetermined cut from each sale. This study examines the interaction between an upstream firm's add†on strategy and a downstream online platform's distribution contract choice. We find that such a firm prefers bundling the add†on and the core product together under the wholesale contract, but prefers retailing the add†on separately under the agency contract. Our research thus is the first to suggest that the distribution contract can critically affect a firm's choice between add†on pricing and bundling. On the platform side, we show that a higher commission rate does not always result in a higher profit for the platform under the agency contract. We further identify two conditions under which the platform prefers the agency contract over the wholesale contract: The commission rate for the platform cannot be too low, and the market potential of the add†on cannot be too large. For the overall channel, we show that the interaction between add†on pricing and distribution contracts leads to sub†optimal channel performance. That said, it is possible for both the firm and the platform to obtain higher profits under the agency contract than under the wholesale contract. Finally, we also demonstrate the robustness of our findings under several alternative model specifications.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"159 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131779474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Should Companies Shape Their Rebate Systems?","authors":"Şahin Ardıyok, Belit Polat","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3276061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3276061","url":null,"abstract":"In general, price discounts provided in return of certain customer behaviors are called “rebate systems.” In regard to competition law, rebate systems arise as a result of either unilateral behavior of the supplier or through a meeting of the minds between customer and supplier. Rebate systems are distinguished from ordinary price reductions as they are provided to a group of customers due to conditions tied to the rebates applicable. In general, within the aforementioned condition, the customer is expected to commit an obligation proposed by the supplier, or it is aimed for the customer to adopt a certain behavior. Rebate systems are generally classified in the doctrine according to different criteria.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128828104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pricing Diagnosis-Based Services When Customers Exhibit Sunk Cost Bias","authors":"Guangwen Kong, S. Rajagopalan, Chunyang Tong","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2657291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2657291","url":null,"abstract":"Significant evidence has emerged in the past few decades that consumers are boundedly rational. A well-known departure from rationality is the inclination to account for sunk costs in making decisions. We compare two commonly used pricing schemes, fixed fee and time-based pricing, when customers exhibit sunk cost bias in a service setting with diagnosis and treatment phases. We consider two customer classes, sophisticated and naive, both of whom experience the sunk cost bias but are different in their awareness of the bias. We find that a monopolist service provider adopts the time-based pricing scheme if the sunk cost bias is small and adopts the fixed fee scheme otherwise. In a competitive setting, a time-based scheme is more likely in markets with either sophisticated or naive customers. Competition mitigates the sunk cost bias and makes the time-based scheme more attractive than for a monopolist. When the market consists of both sophisticated and naive customer classes, it is not optimal to differentiate between naive and sophisticated customers by offering both pricing schemes. Paradoxically, while a monopolist is unable to differentiate between the two customer classes using the two pricing schemes, competing providers are able to differentiate while enjoying positive profits.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115810654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Exporters Set Prices: Evidence from a Large Behavioural Survey","authors":"Miles Parker","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2910854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2910854","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses a survey of 1281 New Zealand exporters to investigate the role of firm characteristics in setting export prices. Larger, and more pro-ductive firms, are more likely to differentiate prices across markets. Primary sector firms are more likely to price to market than firms in other sectors, even taking into account other firm characteristics. This contrasts sharply with the commonly-held view that the price of these products is determined on the international market. In a further contribution to the literature, we find that service sector firms can also price to market, at similar rates to manufacturers manufacturers.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"30 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125852598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Good Reports Mean Higher Prices? The Impact of Hospital Compare Ratings on Cardiac Pricing","authors":"A. Dor, W. Encinosa, K. Carey","doi":"10.3386/W22858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W22858","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research found that the initiation of Hospital Compare (HC) quality reporting had little impact on patient outcomes. However little is known about its impact on hospital prices, which may be significant since insurers are positioned to respond to quality information when engaging hospitals in price negotiations. To explore this issue we estimate variants of difference-in-difference models allowing HC impacts to vary by levels of quality scores. We separately examine the effects of the three main scores (heart attack, heart failure, and combined mortalities) on transaction prices of two related cardiac procedures: bypass surgery and angioplasty. States which had mandated reporting systems preceding HC form the control group. Analyzing claims data of privately insured patients, we find that HC exerted downward pressure on prices, which we attribute to competitive pressures. However, hospitals ranked “above average” captured higher prices, thereby offsetting the overall policy effect. We conclude that HC was effective at constraining prices without penalizing high performers.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125330742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic Perils of Outsourcing: Sourcing Strategy and Product Positioning","authors":"Noriaki Matsushima, Cong Pan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2858735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2858735","url":null,"abstract":"Although outsourcing input production has long been considered as an important approach to help downstream manufacturers enhance structural efficiency, we provide a theoretical explanation for why outsourcing may negatively affect downstream firms' profitability. We consider a duopoly model wherein downstream manufacturers endogenously determine their input sourcing and product positioning strategies. We show that when inputs from outside suppliers are not perfectly compatible with downstream manufacturers' requests, outsourcing causes downstream manufacturers to pursue aggressive product positioning behavior, leading to the prisoner’s dilemma --- even though both downstream manufacturers could be better off producing inputs in-house, they may still choose outsourcing.","PeriodicalId":321987,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Pricing (Topic)","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121896609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}