Pricing is an essential aspect of the marketing mix for brands and products. Further, pricing research in marketing is interdisciplinary, utilizing economic and psychological concepts with special emphasis on measurement and estimation. This unique Handbook provides current knowledge of pricing in a single, authoritative volume and brings together new cutting-edge research by established marketing scholars on a range of topics in the area.
Why do economic reforms that are proceeding successfully often run aground? A number of observers have expressed surprise that public opinion regarding the continuation of a reform process often runs directly counter to the performance of the reform itself. This is especially surprising if one thinks of voters as forward-looking. If anything, a reform that is proceeding successfully might be expected to see burgeoning political support, as voters learn something about the underlying reform, or about the incumbent government's ability to implement it smoothly. In this paper we show that there might arise circumstances where the initial success of reform might result in it running into a political impasse. We suggest that the key might lie in the effect that the reform process has on the balance of political power. In particular, if initially successful reforms change the balance of political power in such a way as to make future redistribution less likely, then public opinion may turn against reform. Thus, in some sense, an initially successful reform may well end up sowing the seeds of its own destruction.
The traditional scientific approach to design extols the virtues of completeness. However, in environments characterized by continual change, there are challenges in adopting such an approach. We examine Linux and Wikipedia as two exemplary cases to explore the nature of design in such a protean world. Our observations highlight a pragmatic approach to design in which incompleteness is harnessed in a generative manner. This suggests a change in the meaning of the word `design' itself — from one that separates the process of design from its outcome, to one that considers design as both the medium and outcome of action.
Differential Evolution (DE) is an evolutionary approach to unravel complex optimization problems. The DE is a straight forward and very popular population based stochastic Algorithm. DE outperformed other competitive evolutionary algorithms when measured over benchmark problem as well as actual optimization problems in terms of performance. The major drawback of DE is early convergence and stagnation at sub-optimal points, like other stochastic optimization algorithms. So as to overcome these problems this paper presents hybrid of DE with levy flight search strategy. The anticipated algorithm tested over a set of benchmark problems to demonstrate its superiority over other popular modification of DE.
Why do economic reforms that are proceeding successfully often run aground? In this paper we show that there might arise circumstances where the initial success of reform might result in it running into a political impasse. We suggest that the key might lie in the effect that the reform process has on the balance of political power. In particular, if initially successful reforms change the balance of political power in such a way as to make future redistribution less likely, then public opinion may turn against reform. Thus, in some sense, an initially successful reform may well end up sowing the seeds of its own destruction.
The rising obesity epidemic is a worldwide concern for consumers, firms, and policy makers. One reason for the rise in obesity is consumers’ over-consumption of vice goods such as cookies, crackers, and soft drinks. Some authors have suggested that firms have incentives to make vice goods unhealthier and to encourage over-consumption. There are calls for regulations to ensure that firms make such products healthier by reducing harmful ingredients and provide nutritional information. Furthermore, public policy makers have begun to educate consumers to avoid over-consumption by using strategies such as pre-purchase planning. In this paper, we investigate how firms selling vice goods should respond to the growing concerns about obesity. We analyze how firms should adjust prices and product design to cater to consumers with self-control problems and obesity concerns. We use the literature on hyperbolic discounting to model consumers with self-control problems. In this framework, we examine how the unhealthiness of vice goods affects prices, firm’s profits, consumer surplus, and public health. In addition, we study how public policy efforts to encourage pre-purchase planning impact firm’s profits and consumers. Our results show that unlike standard goods, for vice goods a decrease in quality (i.e., increase in unhealthiness) and an increase in price can serve as a self-control device and increase demand. Therefore, firms sometimes can charge higher prices and make more profits by producing unhealthier products. Interestingly, producing unhealthier products can sometimes increase consumer surplus and improve public health. We also show that as the proportion of consumers who use pre-purchase planning increases, firms should respond by raising prices. In such situations, consumer surplus and public health improve but firm’s profits decline. These results have important implications for restaurants and firms that sell vice goods and for public policy makers who aim to combat obesity. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1082 .
In many design environments, the technology around which a product is designed may evolve over the course of the product development cycle. In reaction, designers may modify the product's design to avail of new technology, resulting in cost overruns and delays. This effect can be mitigated if a firm proactively considers the revenue projections for alternate technology choices, the cost of these choices, and the anticipated path of technology evolution, in choosing the optimal product positioning policy. We develop an analytical model that navigates this tradeoff.
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