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Managing Strategic Buyers

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Abstract

We consider the problem of a monopolist who must sell her inventory before some deadline, facing n buyers with independent private values. The monopolist posts prices but has no commitment power. The seller faces a basic trade-off between imperfect price discrimination and maintaining an effective reserve price. When there is only one unit and only a few buyers, the seller essentially posts unacceptable prices up to the very end, at which point prices collapse in a series of jumps to a "reserve price" that exceeds marginal cost. When there are many buyers, the seller abandons this reserve price in order to more effectively screen buyers. Her optimal policy then replicates a Dutch auction, with prices decreasing continuously over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes Horner & Larry Samuelson, 2008. "Managing Strategic Buyers," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1684R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1684r
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Revenue management; Intertemporal price discrimination; Coase conjecture; Perishable goods; Reserve price; Dutch auction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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