modeling hidden alternatives in random utility models an application to don t know responses in contingent valuation wedevelop a multinomial logitmodel with missing information that can be used to test for hidden alternatives in random utility models and contingent valuation analysis to illustrate our latentchoice technique we focus on the don t know responses in dichotomous choice contingent valuation questions in this version of the latent choice model we probabilistically reassign don t know responses to either the yes or no categories or leave them in the don t know category if indicated by the data we find that in our two studies a statistically significant number of the don t know responses are actually no responses

a framework of economic analysis for tapered technology manufacturing alliances abstract globalization of production has altered the configuration of supply chains in many industries besides outsourcing joint ventures and strategic alliances are increasingly established to create competitive production organizations this paper addresses a case of tapered technology manufacturing alliance between a process technology firm with captive manufacturing capability and an efficient manufacturing firm in an asset heavy industry a framework of economic analysis is first developed for fusing the factors of technology licensing manufacturing efficiency risk sharing and demand uncertainty analysis methods of capacity economics are next described for participation analysis capacity allocation and contract term tradeoffs finally we demonstrate the utility of the methods by numerical examples with stylized industry data and by an analysis of alliance stability when facing potential new entrants

integrating distribution strategy and tactics a model and an application designing distribution systems requires two decisions one strategic i e the number of levels between the producer and the customer and the other tactical i e channel management policies such as trade discounts and rebates while the modeling literature focuses on one or the other evidence from the field indicates that the two decisions are in fact interactive in this paper we develop and then apply an integrated model that solves the strategic issue of channel levels and the tactical issue of price rebates simultaneously

treatment of don t know responses in contingent valuation surveys a random valuation model abstract this paper provides a utility theoretic interpretation of don t know dk responses in contingent valuation surveys using a referendum elicitation procedure the random valuation model in this paper assumes that each respondent of a contingent valuation survey has an implicit valuation distribution rather than a single true value as traditionally assumed in his her mind if an offered referendum bid is not clearly different from the mean value of one s valuation distribution the respondent may give a dk answer to the cv referendum question based on this model a maximum likelihood procedure is proposed for estimating respondents willingness to pay for a nonmarket good with referendum contingent valuation data which include dk responses an empirical illustration of this estimation procedure is also provided

impact of efficiency investment and competition on low carbon manufacturing abstract low carbon economy has become a top agenda for many countries following the agreement in the paris meeting on climate change in this article we take price and emission sensitive demand into account and incorporate competition between the two rival manufacturers in the demand function this research takes more proactive actions incorporating carbon emissions in the strategic and operational decisions which complements the existing literature on low carbon manufacturing in which the carbon emissions attribute is often used as a constraint or only the single manufacturer s demand is considered based on game theory the pricing and carbon emissions reduction decisions are investigated our study contributes to the existing literature on low carbon manufacturing by specifically examining the impact of production efficiency carbon emissions reduction efficiency and market power structure on achieving low carbon manufacturing through the systematic analysis of optimal pricing and green technology investment decisions to improve the economic and environmental performance under different market power structures our findings provide valuable managerial implications which will help many manufacturing firms to make important strategic and operational decisions regarding low carbon manufacturing

managing channel profits a channel of distribution consists of different channel members each having his own decision variables however each channel member s decisions do affect the other channel members profits and as a consequence actions a lack of coordination of these decisions can lead to undesirable consequences for example in the simple manufacturer retailer consumer channel uncoordinated and independent channel members decisions over margins result in a higher price paid by the consumer than if those decisions were coordinated in addition the ensuing suboptimal volume leads to lower profits for both the manufacturer and the retailer this paper explores the problems inherent in channel coordination we address the following questions what is the effect of channel coordination what causes a lack of coordination in the channel how difficult is it to achieve channel coordination what mechanisms exist which can achieve channel coordination what are the strengths and weaknesses of these mechanism what is the role of nonprice variables e g manufacturer advertising retailer shelf space in coordination does the lack of coordination affect normative implications from in store experimentation can quantity discounts be a coordination mechanism are some marketing practices actually disguised quantity discounts we review the literature and present a simple formulation illustrating the roots of the coordination problem we then derive the form of the quantity discount schedule that results in optimum channel profits this article was originally published in marketing science volume 2 issue 3 pages 239 272 in 1983

informal insurance arrangements with limited commitment theory and evidence from village economies recent work on consumption allocations in village economies finds that idiosyncratic variation in consumption is systematically related to idiosyncratic variation in income thus rejecting the hypothesis of full risk pooling we attempt to explain these observations by adding limited commitment as an impediment to risk pooling we provide a general dynamic model and completely characterise efficient informal insurance arrangements constrained by limited commitment and test the model using data from three indian villages we find that the model can fully explain the dynamic response of consumption to income but that it fails to explain the distribution of consumption across households

pricing strategy of environmental sustainable supply chain with internalizing externalities abstract the negative impact of business activities on resources and sustainability include pollution and environmental externalities which are becoming more severe and attracting worldwide attention this study investigates a mechanism for motivating supply chain members to collaboratively produce environmentally friendly products efps with an investment in pollution reduction and prevention and by considering environmental regulations and incentive policies from the perspective of supply chain members we focus on studying optimal pricing strategies for environmentally sustainable supply chains and the relationship between firm performance and environmental policy incentives by treating the efp as an investment project its economic feasibility can be evaluated in the context of the supply chain unlike traditional supply chain models in our model government policy incentives are shared within the supply chain through transfer price negotiations between manufacturers and suppliers this study addresses the impact of government policy incentives on value transition and profit allotment in the collaborative supply chain system

game theoretical perspectives on dual channel supply chain competition with price discounts and pricing schemes abstract this paper evaluates the impact of price discount contracts and pricing schemes on the dual channel supply chain competition channel conflict occurs when the supplier enters the online direct channel traditional contracts normally require tedious administrational participation full information of the cost structures and other factors the introduction of simple price discount contracts aims at providing easy implementation and effective coordination results from supplier stackelberg retailer stackelberg and nash game theoretic perspectives we show that the scenarios with price discount contracts can outperform the non contract scenarios in addition we show consistent pricing scheme can reduce the channel conflict by inducing more profit to the retailer the leader in the games might but is not guaranteed to have advantages

price competition for retailers with profit and revenue targets abstract price competition for retailers has been extensively studied in the literature assuming the objective of expected profit maximization in this paper we make a major contribution by studying price competition for retailers with both profit and revenue targets consequently each retailer maximizes her profit and revenue probability namely the probability of achieving the profit and revenue targets simultaneously more specifically we analyze a scenario where two competing retailers purchase a perishable product from a common supplier and sell to a common market employing the isoelastic demand model we derive the closed form solutions of the optimal order quantity the optimal selling price and the maximal profit and revenue probability for each retailer it is shown that when revenue is a relevant performance measure positive and non positive salvage values lead to different optima for competing retailers moreover as price elasticity and or price competition intensity becomes higher the optimal retail price decreases and the optimal order quantity increases for each retailer

a supply chain model with direct and retail channels abstract we study a dual channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells to a retailer as well as to consumers directly consumers choose the purchase channel based on price and service qualities the manufacturer decides the price of the direct channel and the retailer decides both price and order quantity we develop conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer share the market in equilibrium we show that the difference in marginal costs of the two channels plays an important role in determining the existence of dual channels in equilibrium we also show that demand variability has a major influence on the equilibrium prices and on the manufacturer s motivation for opening a direct channel in the case that the manufacturer and the retailer coordinate and follow a centralized decision maker we show that adding a direct channel will increase the overall profit our numerical results show that an increase in retailer s service quality may increase the manufacturer s profit in dual channel and a larger range of consumer service sensitivity may benefit both parties in the dual channel our results suggest that the manufacturer is likely to be better off in the dual channel than in the single channel when the retailer s marginal cost is high and the wholesale price consumer valuation and the demand variability are low

alternative approaches for incorporating respondent uncertainty when estimating willingness to pay the case of the mexican spotted owl abstract this paper explores the sources and patterns of respondents uncertainty regarding their willingness to pay wtp and presents alternative approaches for incorporating this uncertainty into estimation of the logit model recently proposed approaches are compared to methods proposed in this paper which allows for incorporation of uncertainty regarding both yes and no responses these approaches are evaluated by comparing the goodness of fit and variability of mean wtp extreme recoding of uncertain yes responses as no responses reduces the logit goodness of fit and the precision of the wtp estimate incorporating the degree of uncertainty of yes responses results in the highest goodness of fit and the smallest variability of mean wtp among the various models addressing uncertainty a regression model is used to determine the significant determinants of respondent uncertainty

a comparison of alternative certainty calibration techniques in contingent valuation abstract a field test of two types of certainty calibration techniques in contingent valuation of public lands indicated that a 10 point certainty scale reduced wtp estimates by about half adjusting for uncertainty via a not sure option did not reduce wtp estimates but the variance increased there are several differences between these two ways of accounting for respondents uncertainty which may suggest why they provide different wtp value estimates and variances

mail versus mall a strategic analysis of competition between direct marketers and conventional retailers consumers now purchase several offerings from direct sellers including catalog and internet marketers these direct channels exist in parallel with the conventional retail stores the availability of multiple channels has significant implications for the performance of consumer markets the literature in marketing and economics has however been dominated by a focus on the conventional retail sector this paper is an effort toward modeling competition in the multiple channel environment from a strategic viewpoint at the outset a parsimonious model that accommodates the following consumer and market characteristics is introduced first the relative attractiveness of retail shopping varies across consumers second the fit with the direct channel varies across product categories third the strength of existing retail presence in local markets moderates competition fourth in contrast with the fixed location of the retail store that anchors its localized market power the location of the direct marketer is irrelevant to the competitive outcome the model is first applied in a setting where consumers have complete knowledge of product availability and prices in all channels in the resulting equilibrium the direct marketer acts as a competitive wedge between retail stores the direct presence is so strong that each retailer competes against the remotely located direct marketer rather than against neighboring retailers this outcome has implications for the marketing mix of retailers which has traditionally been tuned to attract consumers choosing between retail stores in the context of market entry conditions under which a direct channel can access a local market in retail entry equilibrium are derived our analysis suggests that the traditional focus on retail entry equilibria may not yield informative or relevant findings when direct channels are a strong presence next the role of information in multiple channel markets is modeled this issue is particularly relevant in the context of direct marketing where the seller can typically control the level of information in the marketplace sometimes on a customer by customer basis e g by deciding on the mailing list for a catalog campaign when a certain fraction of consumers does not receive information from the direct marketer the retailers compete with each other for that fraction of the market the retailer s marketing mix has to be tuned in this case to jointly address direct and neighboring retail competition the level of information disseminated by the direct marketer is shown to have strategic implications and the use of market coverage as a lever to control competition is described even with zero information costs providing information to all consumers may not be optimal under some circumstances in particular when the product is not well adapted to the direct channel the level of market information about the direct option should ideally be lowered the only way to compete with retailers on a larger scale with a poorly adapted product is by lowering direct prices which lowers profits lowering market information levels and allowing retailers to compete more with each other facilitates a higher equilibrium retail price in turn this allows a higher direct price to be charged and improves overall direct profit on the other hand when the product is well adapted increasing direct market presence and engaging in greater competition with the retail sector yields higher returns the finding that high market coverage may depress profits raises some issues for further exploration first implementing the optimal coverage is straightforward when the seller controls the information mechanism as in the case of catalog marketing the internet in contrast is an efficient mechanism to transmit information but does not provide the sellers with such control over the level of market information a key reason is that the initiative to gather information on the internet lies largely with consumers the design and implementation of mechanisms to control aggregate information levels in electronic markets can therefore be an important theme for research and managerial interest second direct marketers have traditionally relied on the statistical analysis of customer records to decide on contact policies the analysis in this paper reveals that these policies can have significant strategic implications as well research that integrates the statistical and strategic aspects could make a valuable contribution the paper concludes with a discussion of issues for future research in multiple channel markets including avenues to model competition in settings with multiple direct marketers

when and how is the internet likely to decrease price competition conventional wisdom seems to claim that by lowering the cost of distribution and by making search easier for consumer the introduction of the internet is likely to intensify price competition this paper intends to challenge this view by asking when and how is the internet likely to decrease the level of price competition between firms to answer this question we develop an analytic model with the following characteristics on the demand side consumers need to gather information on two types of product attributes digital attributes which can be communicated on the web at very low cost and nondigital attributes for which physical inspection of the product is necessary consumers choose between two brands but are familiar with the nondigital attributes of only the brand purchased on the last purchase occasion on the supply side firms use traditional stores and the internet to inform consumers about their products attributes and to sell their products in this setup we show that the impact of the internet on competition will be radically different depending on the relative importance of parameters describing the relevant shopping and distribution context specifically we find that the introduction of the internet might lead to monopoly pricing when 1 the proportion of internet users is high enough 2 when nondigital attributes are relevant but not overwhelming 3 when consumers have a more favorable prior about the brand they currently own and 4 when the purchase situation can be characterized by destination shopping more surprising we also show that in such cases the use of the internet not only leads to higher prices but can also discourage consumers from engaging in search as such an important message of the paper is that under some conditions the internet might represent an opportunity for firms to leverage their brand loyalty and increase their profits the intuition behind our results is the following the internet allows consumers to evaluate digital attributes easily i e without visiting the stores however nondigital attributes can only be evaluated through physical presence as such for goods where both types of attributes are important the introduction of the net changes the effective cost of search for consumers without the internet the cost of search is the cost of visiting more than one store with the introduction of the net however nonsearching consumers do not have to undertake the shopping trip at all because they can order products on the net thus in the presence of the internet the cost of search is related to the cost of undertaking the entire shopping trip in the case of destination shopping i e when the fixed cost of undertaking the shopping trip is higher than the cost of visiting an additional store the presence of the internet creates higher effective search costs for consumers given this shift of paradigm in search costs due to the internet consumers may not take the risk of searching for products with better nondigital attributes but instead remain with the product they are familiar with this results in increased consumer loyalty which induces firms to increase their prices our results have important managerial implications first they provide guidelines for firms on when i e for which product categories they should consider expanding their distribution network to the internet in this respect an important additional insight of the paper is that the internet can lower price competition and lead to reduced consumer search even if it is more expensive than the traditional distribution channel this can easily be the case if distribution through the internet represents additional costs such as the costs associated with shipping and handling and return policies second the paper also provides guidelines on how to plan the firm s internet strategy interestingly the results suggest that with the general availability of the internet the role of stores might actually become more important while we do not explicitly model a dynamic market our findings together with klemperer s 1987 results suggest that stores might have a key role in consumer acquisition while the internet can help leverage the acquired customer base through demand fulfillment this might imply that for certain product categories firms should actually allocate additional resources to improve their in store environment when considering the internet as a complementary distribution channel

flexible mixture distribution modeling of dichotomous choice contingent valuation with heterogenity abstract this paper considers the performance of a model of mixture normal distributions for dichotomous choice contingent valuation data which allows the researcher to consider unobserved heterogeneity across the sample the model is flexible and approaches a semi parametric model since the normality assumption can be removed by augmenting the number of mixture distributions bayesian inference allows for simple estimation of the model and is particularly appropriate for conducting inference with finite data sets the proposed model is compared with other semi parametric and parametric approaches using monte carlo simulation under alternative assumptions regarding heteroskedasticity and heterogeneity in sample observations it is found that the mixture normal model reduces bias and improves performance with respect to an alternative semi parametric model particularly when the sample is characterized by heterogeneous preferences the application of the model to empirical data on the recreational value of natural areas in the canary islands confirmed the expected results

direct marketing indirect profits a strategic analysis of dual channel supply chain design the advent of e commerce has prompted many manufacturers to redesign their traditional channel structures by engaging in direct sales the model conceptualizes the impact of customer acceptance of a direct channel the degree to which customers accept a direct channel as a substitute for shopping at a traditional store on supply chain design the customer acceptance of a direct channel can be strong enough that an indepent manufacturer would open a direct channel to compete with its own retailers here direct marketing is used for strategic channel control purposes even though it is inefficient on its own and surprisingly it can profit the manufacturer even when so direct sales occur specifically we construct a price setting game between a manufacturer and its independent retailer direct marketing which indirectly increases the flow of profits through the retail channel helps the manufacturer improve overall profitability by reducing the degree of inefficient price double marginalization while operated by the manufacturer to constrain the retailer s pricing behavior the direct channel may not always be detrimental to the retailer because it will be accompanied by a wholesale price reduction this combination of manufacturer pull and push can benefit the retailer in equilibrium finally we show that the mere threat of introducing the direct channel can increase the manufacturer s negotiated share of cooperative profits even if price efficiency is obtained by using other business practices

when should a manufacturer set its direct price and wholesale price in dual channel supply chains abstract applying an observable delay game framework developed in noncooperative game theory we investigate the timing problem concerning when a manufacturer managing dual channel supply chains consisting of a retail channel and a direct channel should post its wholesale price and direct price conventionally operational research models describing dual channel supply chains examine price competition where the retailer and the manufacturer simultaneously determine the retail and direct prices respectively in contrast to this conventional setting our model demonstrates that such simultaneous price competition never arises if the manufacturer and retailer can choose not only the level of the price but also the timing of pricing if the manufacturer sets the direct price after setting the wholesale price to the retailer the retailer accelerates the timing of retail pricing prior to the direct price setting by the manufacturer our findings suggest that the manufacturer should post the direct price before or upon but not after setting the wholesale price for the retailer this upfront posting of the direct price not only constitutes the subgame perfect nash equilibrium of the noncooperative game between channel members but also maximizes the profits for a manufacturer employing multichannel sales strategies

channel coordination when retailers compete this paper explores channel coordination by a manufacturer that sells through competing retailers and that treats these retailers equally as required by the robinson patman act the authors show that in general there exists no single two part tariff with a constant per unit charge that will duplicate the behavioral results i e prices quantities and channel profits that are obtained by a vertically integrated system that is the channel cannot be coordinated except in the trivial cases of identical or noncompeting retailers however an appropriately specified quantity discount schedule will enable the channel to earn the same profits generated by a vertically integrated system conditions are derived under which a manufacturer will prefer to offer various two part tariffs with constant per unit charges instead of the channel coordinating quantity discount schedule the authors also establish the existence of a menu of two part tariffs that mimics all results of a vertically integrated system however only under stringent conditions will retailers select the appropriate tariff from the menu when these conditions are not satisfied the channel is worse off than in the case of a single second best tariff it is also demonstrated that under a wide range of parametric values the manufacturer will prefer to offer the second best two part tariff rather than a menu of two part tariffs that could maximize channel profits

nash game model for optimizing market strategies configuration of platform products in a vendor managed inventory vmi supply chain for a product family this paper discusses how a manufacturer and its retailers interact with each other to optimize their product marketing strategies platform product configuration and inventory policies in a vmi vendor managed inventory supply chain the manufacturer procures raw materials from multiple suppliers to produce a family of products sold to multiple retailers multiple types of products are substitutable each other to end customers the manufacturer makes its decision on raw materials procurement platform product configuration product replenishment policies to retailers with vmi price discount rate and advertising investment to maximize its profit retailers in turn consider the optimal local advertising investments and retail prices to maximize their profits this problem is modeled as a dual simultaneous non cooperative game as a dual nash game model with two sub games one is between the retailers serving in competing retail markets and the other is between the manufacturer and the retailers this paper combines analytical iterative and ga genetic algorithm methods to develop a game solution algorithm to find the nash equilibrium a numerical example is conducted to test the proposed model and algorithm and gain managerial implications

protest beliefs in contingent valuation explaining their motivation abstract the definition and treatment of protest responses in contingent valuation cv can have a significant influence on the estimated values of the good in question if these responses are censored in order to understand how protest responses are motivated in a cv about forest biodiversity in germany we used an item battery to identify respondents protest beliefs the items were measured for all respondents irrespective of their willingness to pay wtp in principle then a scale based on these beliefs is taken as a dependent variable of regression analyses in addition to environmental concern we used norms the warm glow of giving and dilemma concern as further explanatory variables the latter focuses on cooperation problems in protecting the environment our results show that protest beliefs are significantly influenced by the explanatory factors furthermore the protest beliefs themselves have a significant effect on the decision to be wtp as well as on the amount of money stated by those who are wtp the censoring of protest responses may therefore be indefensible

a game theoretic approach for green and non green product pricing in chain to chain competitive sustainable and regular dual channel supply chains abstract nowadays sustainable supply chain has become an exciting concept during the academic societies this paper considers environmental and economic aspect of sustainability due to environmental concerns the entry of green products into today s markets is on the rise how to compete for the production of green products with non green products is essential in these markets therefore this research focuses on the pricing and determination of the degree of greenness of a product in competition with a non green product this study for the first time investigates the pricing of two substitute products a green product produced by one manufacturer and a non green product produced by a second manufacturer under two dual channel supply chains including retail and internet channels the decision variables for one manufacturer are the price and degrees of eco friendliness of the green product for the other the decision variable is the price of the non green product this problem is solved under two different scenarios centralized and decentralized in the decentralized scenario a stackelberg competition is considered between the retailer level and the manufacturer level of the total supply chains in which the manufacturers are assumed to be the leader and the retailers are the followers in the centralized scenario players in each of their related supply chain are integrated the problem is solved and compared under two scenarios finally both parametric and numerical analyses are presented and some managerial insights are provided and some of which are as follows the centralized scenario cause to achieve high the green degree comparing with the decentralized scenario

procurement strategies and coordination mechanism of the supply chain with one manufacturer and multiple suppliers abstract this paper investigates the coordination mechanism for supply chain with one manufacturer and multiple competing suppliers in the electronic market we first study two conventional price only policies including wholesale price policy and catalog policy based on the reverse vickrey auction and show that both the buyer and the powerful suppliers with production cost less than a special threshold value prefer catalog policy to wholesale price policy and the powerless suppliers prefer wholesale price policy to catalog policy simultaneously neither policy can coordinate the channel composed of the manufacturer and the winning supplier we also show that a quantity discount policy cannot coordinate the supply chain with competing suppliers unless a kind of restriction is imposed the aim of the paper is to explore a coordination mechanism i e the price restricted quantity discount policy pareto analysis indicates that the manufacturer and the winning supplier will realize the win win situation and the channel can also be coordinated a key managerial implication of our study is that additional restrictive condition may be necessary to eliminate system inefficiency some numerical examples are also given to illustrate management insights

dichotomous choice contingent valuation with dont know responses and misreporting a new approach is presented that simultaneously deals with misreporting and don t know dk responses within a dichotomous choice contingent valuation framework utilising a modification of the standard bayesian probit framework a gibbs with metropolis hastings algorithm is used to estimate the posterior densities for the parameters of interest several model specifications are applied to two contingent valuation datasets one on wolf management plans and one on the us fee demonstration program we find that dks are more likely to be from people who would be predicted to have positive utility for the bid therefore a dk is more likely to be a yes than a no we also find evidence of misreporting primarily in favour of the no option the inclusion of dk responses has an unpredictable impact on willingness to pay estimates since it impacts differently on the results for the two datasets we examine copyright c 2009 john wiley sons ltd

discrete choice under preference uncertainty an improved structural model for contingent valuation abstract this paper is concerned with discrete choice contingent value estimation in the presence of response errors we attempt to extend the theoretical frameworks developed by hanemann 1984 amer j agric econom 66 332 341 and cameron 1988 j environ econom management 15 355 379 by introducing preference uncertainty with individual respondents we assume that respondents have incomplete knowledge about their true valuation of a nonmarket resource and thus may give wrong yes no answers on whether or not to pay a given bid amount for the resource a post decisional confidence measure for each observed yes no answer is elicited for characterizing the degree of preference uncertainty with the help of this confidence measure we develop an improved structural model for deriving value estimates data from a forest environment valuation survey are used for the empirical estimations

preference uncertainty in non market valuation a fuzzy approach in this article we consider uncertain preferences for non market goods but we move away from a probabilistic representation of uncertainty and propose the use of fuzzy contingent valuation we assume that a decision maker never fully knows her own utility function and we treat utility as a fuzzy number the methodology is illustrated using data on forest valuation in sweden fuzzy contingent valuation provides estimates of resource value in the form of a fuzzy number and includes estimates obtained using a standard probabilistic approach

a model for analyzing multi channel distribution systems to capture customers in different market segments many firms distribute their products using multiple channels involving in store mail order and electronic mediums nevertheless the business literature is replete with examples where the management of multiple distribution channels becomes unwieldy as a way to evaluate different distribution strategies arising from multiple channels we develop a model of a general multi channel distribution system subject to stochastic demand since the exact analysis of our model is intractable we propose a decomposition scheme that enables us to develop a near optimal distribution policy with minimum total expected distribution cost we utilize our analysis of this multi channel system in two specific applications arising from multi channel distribution the first application deals with a store based retailer expanding into a direct sales channel the retailer can fill the orders generated from this additional sales channel by using the existing stores or the existing depots for this application we evaluate the trade off between these two options the second application intends to find a cost effective way to distribute products by utilizing the combined distribution system of two retailers after a potential merger and acquisition m a for this application we quantify the benefit of an m a in terms of distribution efficiency

pricing decisions for complementary products with firms different market powers abstract this article reports the results of a study that explores the pricing problems with regard to two complementary products in a supply chain with two manufacturers and one common retailer the authors establish five pricing models under decentralized decision cases including the ms bertrand ms stackelberg rs bertrand rs stackelberg and ng models with consideration of different market power structures among channel members by applying a game theoretical approach corresponding analytic solutions are obtained then by comparing the maximum profits and optimal pricing decisions obtained in different decision cases interesting and valuable managerial insights are established

a stackelberg model of pricing of complementary goods under information asymmetry abstract we consider a duopoly market where two separate firms offer complementary goods in a leader follower type move each firm has private forecast information about the uncertain market demand and decides whether to share it with the other firm we show that information sharing would benefit the leader firm but hurt the follower firm as well as the total system if the follower firm shares information unconditionally we then devise a simple to implement information sharing scheme under which both firms and the total system are better off we also provide several interesting managerial insights and establish the robustness of the model in managing a supply chain through our analytical and simulation results

note on self restraint as an online entry deterrence strategy we develop a game theoretical model to show that in the markets where price consistency across channels is critical an incumbent brick and mortar retailer can deter the online entry of a pure play e tailer by strategically refraining from entering online in the markets where price consistency is not a constraint we find that the incumbent can deter the e tailer s entry only if it enters online and credibly operates the online channel as an independent profit center in other words the incumbent must be willing to cannibalize its own brick and mortar business by charging a low online price we also discuss some social welfare implications of retail online entry and the managerial insights of our analysis

game theoretic pricing and ordering decisions with partial lost sales in two stage supply chains abstract few papers have studied the optimal pricing and ordering with partial lost sales from a two stage game theoretic perspective this paper considers a supply chain game with a buyer and a seller through pricing and ordering models with partial lost sales we evaluate the optimal solutions for the buyer and the seller and provide insights into both the deterministic and stochastic demand models we also propose search algorithms to obtain the global optimum when convexity and concavity conditions are not satisfied

a contingent valuation estimate of the benefits of wolves in minnesota in this paper we estimate the willingness topay for a wolf management plan and a wolfdamage plan in minnesota using the contingentvaluation method the theoretical definition ofwillingness to pay for wolf protection iscomposed of use and non use values weincorporate a don t know response option in thedichotomous choice valuation questions a largenumber of respondents answered don t know themultinomial logit model is used todifferentiate between don t know and noresponses non use motives are importantfactors that explain willingness to pay we usethese benefit estimates in combination with twoalternative cost estimates to consider theefficiency of the wolf management and damageplans both plans have estimated benefitsgreater than costs