IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-24-00249.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discrete pricing and consumer utility

Author

Listed:
  • Edward Osei

    (Tarleton State University)

Abstract

We introduce and present a simple treatment of discrete pricing, a nonlinear pricing strategy that entails successive discrete price adjustments, triggered by corresponding purchase quantity thresholds. When the price adjustments are discounts, consumer utility may not necessarily increase with discrete pricing as compared to conventional pricing, depending upon the positions of the quantity thresholds and magnitudes of price discounts. We introduce the concepts of material and economic waste and highlight how the positions of the quantity thresholds affect consumer choices, utility, and the potential level of waste. Discrete pricing results in economic waste – unrealized utility – whenever consumers find it optimal to choose the binding minimum quantity required to obtain the price discount.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward Osei, 2024. "Discrete pricing and consumer utility," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(3), pages 1123-1131.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00249
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2024/Volume44/EB-24-V44-I3-P87.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. , & ,, 2014. "Regular prices and sales," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), January.
    2. Ye, Lixin & Zhang, Chenglin, 2017. "Monopolistic nonlinear pricing with consumer entry," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    3. Viswanathan, S. & Wang, Qinan, 2003. "Discount pricing decisions in distribution channels with price-sensitive demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(3), pages 571-587, September.
    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. Jean-Michel Benkert, 2015. "Bilateral trade with loss-averse agents," ECON - Working Papers 188, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jul 2022.
    2. Yingxiao Li & Jianheng Zhou, 2022. "Sustainable Supplier’s Equilibrium Discount Strategy under Random Demand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-12, April.
    3. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    4. Mutlu, Fatih & Çetinkaya, Sıla, 2020. "Supplier–carrier–buyer channels: Contractual pricing for a carrier serving a supplier–buyer partnership," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    5. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran, 2015. "X-games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 93-100.
    6. Sugden, Robert & Wang, Mengjie & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2019. "Take it or leave it: Experimental evidence on the effect of time-limited offers on consumer behaviour," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 1-23.
    7. Ran Spiegler, 2012. "Monopoly pricing when consumers are antagonized by unexpected price increases: a “cover version” of the Heidhues–Kőszegi–Rabin model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 695-711, November.
    8. Fischer, Greg & Karlan, Dean & McConnell, Margaret & Raffler, Pia, 2019. "Short-term subsidies and seller type: A health products experiment in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 110-124.
    9. Liang, Zhiyuan & Tang, Yili & Yu, Jianing & Wang, Yacan, 2024. "A collective incentive strategy to manage ridership rebound and consumer surplus in mass transit systems," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    10. Gentry, Matthew & Pesendorfer, Martin, 2021. "Pricing with bargain hunting consumers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111591, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Benioudakis, Myron & Zissis, Dimitris & Burnetas, Apostolos & Ioannou, George, 2023. "Service provision on an aggregator platform with time-sensitive customers: Pricing strategies and coordination," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    12. Zhang, Mu & Zheng, Jie, 2017. "A robust reference-dependent model for speculative bubbles," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 232-258.
    13. Jong-Hee Hahn & Jinwoo Kim & Sang-Hyun Kim & Jihong Lee, 2018. "Price discrimination with loss averse consumers," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 681-728, May.
    14. Glimcher, Paul & Tymula, Agnieszka & Woelbert, Eva, 2013. "Flexible valuations for consumer goods as measured by the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism," Working Papers 2013-20, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    15. Schotanus, Fredo & Telgen, Jan & de Boer, Luitzen, 2008. "Unfair allocation of gains under the Equal Price allocation method in purchasing groups," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 162-176, May.
    16. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Xin Li & Kenan Li & Yongjian Li, 2023. "Platform Operations under Dual-Channel Catering Supply Chain," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-33, August.
    18. Adeinat, Hamza & Pazhani, Subramanian & Mendoza, Abraham & Ventura, Jose A., 2022. "Coordination of pricing and inventory replenishment decisions in a supply chain with multiple geographically dispersed retailers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    19. Biancalani, Francesco & Gnecco, Giorgio & Riccaboni, Massimo, 2022. "Price-volume agreements: A one principal/two agents model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 300(1), pages 296-309.
    20. Pal, Brojeswar & Sana, Shib Sankar & Chaudhuri, Kripasindhu, 2014. "Joint pricing and ordering policy for two echelon imperfect production inventory model with two cycles," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 229-238.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discrete pricing; consumer utility; economic waste; material waste;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00249. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.