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The Pay-What-You-Want game: What can be learned from the experimental evidence on Dictator and Trust Games?

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  • Greiff Matthias

    (Clausthal Technical University, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany)

  • Egbert Henrik

    (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Bernburg, Germany)

Abstract

This paper introduces the Pay-What-You-Want game which represents the interaction between a buyer and a seller in a Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) situation. The PWYW game embeds the dictator game and the trust game as subgames. This allows us to use previous experimental studies with the dictator and the trust game to identify three factors that can influence the success of PWYW pricing in business practice: (i) social context, (ii) social information, and (iii) deservingness. Only few cases of PWYW pricing for a longer period of time have been documented. By addressing repeated games, we isolate two additional factors which are likely to contribute to successful implementations of PWYW as a long term pricing strategy. These are (iv) communication and (v) the reduction of goal conflicts. The central contribution of this study is an attempt to bridge the gap between laboratory experiments and the research on PWYW pricing, which relies largely on evidence from the field. By reviewing the relevant experiments, this study identifies factors crucial for the success of PWYW pricing and provides guidance to developing long-term applications of PWYW pricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Greiff Matthias & Egbert Henrik, 2017. "The Pay-What-You-Want game: What can be learned from the experimental evidence on Dictator and Trust Games?," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 124-139, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:manmar:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:124-139:n:8
    DOI: 10.1515/mmcks-2017-0008
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pay-What-You-Want; PWYW Game; pricing; dictator game; trust game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D49 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Other
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • M30 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - General

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