We examine how retailers discount the prices of product systems versus their constituent components. The topic is important because such systems are ubiquitous in our daily lives. In particular, many high-tech markets revolve around complex multi-component systems – e.g. a camera system...

This paper introduces joint product design and non-linear pricing in the context of sharing markets. Product ecosystems enable user sensing, setting the stage for the control of post-purchase consumption patterns. By varying the degree to which products can be reused and transferred among peers,...

Cost cap tariffs are pay-per-use tariffs for which costs cannot exceed a predefined cost limit. They were recently introduced to telecommunications markets, but were previously also applied in the insurance industry as deductibles or in the rental industry as day rates. This paper develops and...

Online platforms provide search tools that help consumers to get betterfitting product offers. But this technology makes consumer search behavior also easily traceable for the platform and allows for real-time price discrimination. Consumers face a trade-off: Search intensely and receive better...

We present a diagrammatic and step-by-step analysis of price signaling quality. Because quality is a continuum on the real positive line, out-of-equilibrium beliefs need not be specified, i.e., every positive price is a positive outcome in equilibrium. We first study the behavior of the monopoly...

We study markets for information in the form of Bayesian signals. The main feature of such markets is that information is costly for the seller to acquire and cannot be verified by the buyer. We provide a full characterization of the set of all compensation schemes (viz., menus) which guarantee...

A monopolist uses prices as an instrument to influence consumers' belief about the unknown quality of its product. Consumers observe prices and sales in earlier periods to learn about the product. Every period they decide whether to consume the product or to wait for a lower price in future. We...

Although some firms use dynamic pricing to respond to demand fluctuations, other firms claim that fairness concerns prevent them from raising prices during periods when demand exceeds capacity. This paper explores conditions in which fairness concerns can or cannot cause shortages. In our model,...

Many models in operations management assume that faced with excess inventory, retailers offer price discounts to increase sales. This discount is assumed to be a certain dollar amount per unit or a certain percent of the regular price. However, many retailers use nonlinear pricing, e.g. "Buy...

Strategic inventory plays a vital role in a manufacturer-retailer dynamic contract. By holding inventories in a period, the retailer curtails the manufacturer’s pricing power in the next period and alleviates double marginalization, significantly increasing the manufacturer’s and...