IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-686713.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revenue Management with Forward-Looking Buyers

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Board
  • Andrzej Skrzypacz

Abstract

A seller wishes to sell multiple goods by a deadline, for example, the end of a season. Potential buyers enter over time and can strategically time their purchases. Each period, the profit-maximizing mechanism awards units to the buyers with the highest valuations exceeding a sequence of cutoffs. We show that these cutoffs are deterministic, depending only on the inventory and time remaining; in the continuous-time limit, the optimal mechanism can be implemented by posting anonymous prices. When incoming demand decreases over time, the optimal cutoffs satisfy a one-period-look-ahead property and prices are defined by an intuitive differential equation.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Board & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2016. "Revenue Management with Forward-Looking Buyers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1046-1087.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/686713
    DOI: 10.1086/686713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686713
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686713
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/686713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guillermo Gallego & Garrett van Ryzin, 1994. "Optimal Dynamic Pricing of Inventories with Stochastic Demand over Finite Horizons," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(8), pages 999-1020, August.
    2. Raymond Deneckere & James Peck, 2012. "Dynamic Competition With Random Demand and Costless Search: A Theory of Price Posting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1185-1247, May.
    3. Yossi Aviv & Amit Pazgal, 2008. "Optimal Pricing of Seasonal Products in the Presence of Forward-Looking Consumers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 339-359, December.
    4. Said, Maher, 2012. "Auctions with dynamic populations: Efficiency and revenue maximization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(6), pages 2419-2438.
    5. McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions with a stochastic number of bidders," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    7. Andrew Sweeting, 2012. "Dynamic Pricing Behavior in Perishable Goods Markets: Evidence from Secondary Markets for Major League Baseball Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1133-1172.
    8. Liran Einav & Chiara Farronato & Jonathan D. Levin & Neel Sundaresan, 2013. "Sales Mechanisms in Online Markets: What Happened to Internet Auctions?," NBER Working Papers 19021, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Kruse, Thomas & Strack, Philipp, 2015. "Optimal stopping with private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 702-727.
    10. Gonca P. Soysal & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 2012. "Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 293-316, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Alderighi, Marco & Gaggero, Alberto A. & Piga, Claudio A., 2022. "Hidden prices with fixed inventory: Evidence from the airline industry," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 42-61.
    2. 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.
    3. Namin, Aidin & Soysal, Gonca P. & Ratchford, Brian T., 2022. "Alleviating demand uncertainty for seasonal goods: An analysis of attribute-based markdown policy for fashion retailers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 671-681.
    4. Yiwei Chen & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2021. "Technical Note—On Revenue Management with Strategic Customers Choosing When and What to Buy," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 175-187, January.
    5. Yiwei Chen & Vivek F. Farias & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2019. "On the Efficacy of Static Prices for Revenue Management in the Face of Strategic Customers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5535-5555, December.
    6. Nagengast, Arne J. & Bursian, Dirk & Menz, Jan-Oliver, 2021. "Dynamic pricing and exchange rate pass-through: Evidence from transaction-level data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    7. Andrew Sweeting, 2012. "Dynamic Pricing Behavior in Perishable Goods Markets: Evidence from Secondary Markets for Major League Baseball Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1133-1172.
    8. Ken Moon & Kostas Bimpikis & Haim Mendelson, 2018. "Randomized Markdowns and Online Monitoring," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1271-1290, March.
    9. Kevin R. Williams, 2022. "The Welfare Effects of Dynamic Pricing: Evidence From Airline Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 831-858, March.
    10. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "Dynamic Airline Pricing and Seat Availability," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2020.
    11. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "Dynamic Airline Pricing and Seat Availability," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    12. Diego Escobari, 2012. "Dynamic Pricing, Advance Sales and Aggregate Demand Learning in Airlines," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 697-724, December.
    13. Yiwei Chen & Vivek F. Farias, 2018. "Robust Dynamic Pricing with Strategic Customers," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 43(4), pages 1119-1142, November.
    14. Diego Escobari & Nicholas G. Rupp & Joseph Meskey, 2019. "An Analysis of Dynamic Price Discrimination in Airlines," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 639-662, January.
    15. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "The Welfare Effects of Dynamic Pricing: Evidence from Airline Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103R2, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2021.
    16. Bergemann, Dirk & Pavan, Alessandro, 2015. "Introduction to Symposium on Dynamic Contracts and Mechanism Design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 679-701.
    17. Escobari, Diego & Rupp, Nicholas & Meskey, Joseph, 2018. "Dynamic Price Discrimination in Airlines," MPRA Paper 88078, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Adam J. Mersereau & Dan Zhang, 2012. "Markdown Pricing with Unknown Fraction of Strategic Customers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 355-370, July.
    19. Lingxiu Dong & Panos Kouvelis & Zhongjun Tian, 2009. "Dynamic Pricing and Inventory Control of Substitute Products," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 317-339, December.
    20. Gonca P. Soysal & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 2012. "Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 293-316, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/686713. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.