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Asking Price and Price Discounts: The Strategy of Selling an Asset Under Price Uncertainty

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  • Tapan Biswas
  • Jolian Mchardy

Abstract

We consider fixed and asking price strategies in the context of selling an asset with Bernoullian updating of the seller’s subjective probability of sale at a given price. The determination of optimal fixed, asking and endogenous reservation prices is discussed under risk-neutrality and expected utility maximisation. With risk-neutrality, the optimal asking price exceeds the optimal fixed price when the expected gain is a strictly concave function. The seller’s choice between the fixed and the asking price strategies depends on several factors: the expected cost of haggling, price competition and the seller’s attitude towards risk. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

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  • Tapan Biswas & Jolian Mchardy, 2007. "Asking Price and Price Discounts: The Strategy of Selling an Asset Under Price Uncertainty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 281-301, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:62:y:2007:i:3:p:281-301
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-007-9031-9
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    Cited by:

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    2. Egozcue, Martin & Fuentes García, Luis & Zitikis, Ricardas, 2012. "An optimal strategy for maximizing the expected real-estate selling price: accept or reject an offer?," MPRA Paper 40694, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Keshab BHATTARAI, 2008. "Bargaining, Coalitions, Signalling and Repeated Games for Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation," EcoMod2008 23800012, EcoMod.
    4. Martín Egozcue & Jiang Wu & Ričardas Zitikis, 2017. "Optimal two-stage pricing strategies from the seller’s perspective under the uncertainty of buyer’s decisions," Journal of Statistical Distributions and Applications, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, December.

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