IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v146y2011i4p1699-1711.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning about the arrival of sales

Author

Listed:
  • Mason, Robin
  • Välimäki, Juuso

Abstract

We analyse optimal stopping when the economic environment changes because of learning. A primary application is optimal selling of an asset when demand is uncertain. The seller learns about the arrival rate of buyers. As time passes without a sale, the seller becomes more pessimistic about the arrival rate. When the arrival of buyers is not observed, the rate at which the seller revises her beliefs is affected by the price she sets. Learning leads to a higher posted price by the seller. When the seller does observe the arrival of buyers, she sets an even higher price.

Suggested Citation

  • Mason, Robin & Välimäki, Juuso, 2011. "Learning about the arrival of sales," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1699-1711, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:146:y:2011:i:4:p:1699-1711
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053111000329
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton & Christopher Harris & Bruno Jullien, 1991. "Optimal Learning by Experimentation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(4), pages 621-654.
    2. Rothschild, Michael, 1974. "A two-armed bandit theory of market pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 185-202, October.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Ulrigh Hege, 2005. "The Financing of Innovation: Learning and Stopping," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 719-752, Winter.
    4. Gerard J. van den Berg, 1990. "Nonstationarity in Job Search Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(2), pages 255-277.
    5. Rustichini, Aldo & Wolinsky, Asher, 1995. "Learning about variable demand in the long run," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(5-7), pages 1283-1292.
    6. Merlo, Antonio & Ortalo-Magne, Francois, 2004. "Bargaining over residential real estate: evidence from England," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 192-216, September.
    7. Godfrey Keller & Sven Rady & Martin Cripps, 2005. "Strategic Experimentation with Exponential Bandits," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 39-68, January.
    8. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "The Ignorant Monopolist: Optimal Learning with Endogenous Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 565-581, August.
    9. Mirman, Leonard J & Samuelson, Larry & Urbano, Amparo, 1993. "Monopoly Experimentation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 549-563, August.
    10. McLennan, Andrew, 1984. "Price dispersion and incomplete learning in the long run," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 331-347, September.
    11. Kenneth Burdett & Tara Vishwanath, 1988. "Declining Reservation Wages and Learning," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(4), pages 655-665.
    12. Smith, Lones, 1999. "Optimal job search in a changing world," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-9, July.
    13. Godfrey Keller & Sven Rady, 1999. "Optimal Experimentation in a Changing Environment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(3), pages 475-507.
    14. David A. Malueg & Shunichi O. Tsutsui, 1997. "Dynamic R&D Competition with Learning," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 751-772, Winter.
    15. Lancaster, Tony & Chesher, Andrew, 1983. "An Econometric Analysis of Reservation Wages," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(6), pages 1661-1676, November.
    16. Balvers, Ronald J & Cosimano, Thomas F, 1990. "Actively Learning about Demand and the Dynamics of Price Adjustment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 882-898, September.
    17. Easley, David & Kiefer, Nicholas M, 1988. "Controlling a Stochastic Process with Unknown Parameters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1045-1064, September.
    18. Godfrey Keller, 2007. "Passive learning: a critique by example," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(2), pages 263-269, November.
    19. Driffill, John & Miller, Marcus, 1993. "Learning and Inflation Convergence in the ERM," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(417), pages 369-378, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guofang Huang & Hong Luo & Jing Xia, 2019. "Invest in Information or Wing It? A Model of Dynamic Pricing with Seller Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5556-5583, December.
    2. Chong Huang & Fei Li, 2011. "Bargaining While Learning About New Arrivals, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 13-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 21 May 2013.
    3. Guofang Huang & Haiyan Liu, 2021. "Estimating expectations-based reference-price effects in the used-car retail market," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 457-503, December.
    4. Jing-Yuan, Chiou, 2012. "In the shadow of giants," MPRA Paper 37033, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bing Wang & Wenjie Bi & Haiying Liu, 2023. "Dynamic Pricing with Parametric Demand Learning and Reference-Price Effects," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, May.
    6. Eerola, Essi & Lyytikäinen, Teemu, 2015. "On the role of public price information in housing markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 74-84.
    7. Alex Gershkov & Benny Moldovanu & Philipp Strack, 2018. "Revenue-Maximizing Mechanisms with Strategic Customers and Unknown, Markovian Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2031-2046, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wieland, Volker, 2000. "Learning by doing and the value of optimal experimentation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 501-534, April.
    2. Christos Koulovatianos & Leonard J. Mirman & Marc Santugini, 2006. "Investment in a Monopoly with Bayesian Learning," Vienna Economics Papers 0603, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    3. Bergemann, Dirk & Valimaki, Juuso, 2002. "Entry and Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 91-125, September.
    4. Koulovatianos, Christos & Mirman, Leonard J. & Santugini, Marc, 2009. "Optimal growth and uncertainty: Learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 280-295, January.
    5. Loginova, Oksana & Taylor, Curtis, 2003. "Price Experimentation with Strategic Buyers," Working Papers 03-02, Duke University, Department of Economics.
    6. Rosenberg, Dinah & Salomon, Antoine & Vieille, Nicolas, 2013. "On games of strategic experimentation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 31-51.
    7. Oksana Loginova & Curtis Taylor, 2008. "Price experimentation with strategic buyers," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 12(3), pages 165-187, September.
    8. Chen Yeh & David Argente, 2016. "A Menu Cost Model with Price Experimentation," 2016 Meeting Papers 1515, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Fishman, Arthur & Rob, Rafael, 1998. "Experimentation and Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 299-320, February.
    10. Christos Koulovatianos & Leonard J. Mirman & Marc Santugini, 2006. "Investment in a Monopoly with Bayesian Learning," Vienna Economics Papers vie0603, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    11. Eric Cope, 2007. "Bayesian strategies for dynamic pricing in e‐commerce," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 265-281, April.
    12. Agbo, Maxime, 2015. "A perpetual search for talents across overlapping generations: A learning process," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 131-145.
    13. Cosimano, Thomas F., 2008. "Optimal experimentation and the perturbation method in the neighborhood of the augmented linear regulator problem," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1857-1894, June.
    14. Mason, Robin & Välimäki, Juuso, 2008. "Learning and Smooth Stopping," CEPR Discussion Papers 6623, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Arthur Charpentier & Romuald Élie & Carl Remlinger, 2023. "Reinforcement Learning in Economics and Finance," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 425-462, June.
    16. Guofang Huang & Hong Luo & Jing Xia, 2019. "Invest in Information or Wing It? A Model of Dynamic Pricing with Seller Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5556-5583, December.
    17. Batlome Janjgava & Sergey Slobodyan, 2011. "Duopoly Competition, Escape Dynamics and Non-cooperative Collusion," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp445, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    18. Vives, Xavier, 1997. "Learning from Others: A Welfare Analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-200, August.
    19. Taub, B., 2023. "Signal-jamming in the frequency domain," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 896-930.
    20. J. Michael Harrison & N. Bora Keskin & Assaf Zeevi, 2012. "Bayesian Dynamic Pricing Policies: Learning and Earning Under a Binary Prior Distribution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 570-586, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:146:y:2011:i:4:p:1699-1711. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.