Firms in many industries experience protracted periods of pricing power, the ability to successfully enact price increases. In these situations, firms must decide not only whether to raise prices, but to whom. Specifically, in a competitive context, they must determine whether it is more...

United States firms collectively spend over $6.5 billion annually on coupon promotions and are becoming increasingly concerned with their profitability. FSI (free-standing-insert) data show that coupon duration varies across brands. In this paper, we show how coupon duration can affect coupon...

We examine the key factors that influence a firm's decision whether to use front-loaded or rear-loaded incentives. When using price packs, direct mail coupons, FSI coupons or peel-off coupons, consumers obtain an immediate benefit upon purchase or a front-loaded incentive. However, when buying...

Managers in the fundraising and public sectors face the constant challenge of soliciting donations from a population who may or may not have donated before. Rather than merely asking respondents what they wish to donate, it is standard practice to present a set of suggested amounts – the...

Continuous-time monopolistic models of advertising expenditure that rely on strict response concavity have been shown to prescribe eventual spending at a constant rate. However, analyses of discrete analogs have suggested that S-shaped response (convexity for low expenditure levels) may allow...

Numerous models in the Management Science literature contain constructions that are a variant of the following: A decision-maker must choose from a set of alternatives based on imperfect information as to their relative quality, while further evaluation, through costly, provides more accurate...