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This study examines how personalized pricing affects customers' showrooming behavior in the duopoly competition with horizontal product differentiation between traditional and online retailers. For the available personalized pricing strategies, we obtained the optimal decisions for both retailers in the scenarios with and without showrooming. Our results indicate that adopting personalized pricing under particular conditions enables each retailer to be more profitable, even in the presence of showrooming purchases. This finding explains why an increasing number of online and offline retailers have implemented personalized pricing based on technical means and consumer purchase records. It is also demonstrated that personalized pricing can counter showrooming behavior of consumers amidst the competition between both retailers, which provides a novel theoretical basis for dealing with cross‐channel shopping in multichannel retail competition. We further clarify how retailers can avoid being trapped in a prisoner's dilemma when both sides have access to personalized pricing. Also, the adoption of personalized pricing can improve consumer surplus and social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the effects of "choose-one-over-another" monopolistic strategies on two-sided platforms, analyzing the implications of such practices on network effects and platform economics through the Hotelling model. Our key findings include the following: (1) "Choose-one-over-another" policies enhance positive network effects, increasing multi-homing on the demand side but reducing overall platform revenue. These policies also intensify negative network effects, leading to higher prices for supply-side users and thereby undermining the welfare of demand-side users. (2) After antitrust interventions, platforms adjust pricing dynamically, increasing for one side and decreasing for the other in response to changes in same-side network effects, which in turn influences multi-homing behaviors and revenue impacts differently before and after the enforcement of such policies. (3) Without exclusive selection mandates, platform pricing strategies tend to lower prices for supply-side users, especially under competitive pressures or weaker positive network effects, potentially increasing platform revenue and overall supply chain welfare under certain conditions. This study highlights the critical role of regulatory oversight in curbing monopolistic platform behaviors to protect user rights and ensure market health, offering strategic guidance for platform management amidst competitive and operational challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends Banerjee and Poddar [Banerjee, S and S Poddar (2019). 'To sell or not to sell': Licensing versus selling by an outside innovator. Economic Modelling, 76, 293–304] by lifting the cap on per unit royalty rates in the cases of royalty licensing and two-part tariff licensing. We reconsider the optimal technology licensing contract by an outside innovator facing two heterogeneous licensees in a standard Hotelling framework. Our findings show that the optimal licensing policy could be fixed fee to the efficient firm, or two-part tariff to both firms (pure royalty to both firms), or two-part tariff to the efficient firm, depending upon the cost differentials between the firms and the size of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social technologies have enabled the emergence of online platforms that provide offline service consultations and recommendations. In this environment, economic inefficiency arises when customers are not fully aware of their horizontally differentiated preferences. With its expertise or data dominance, a platform can be more informed about customers' hidden preferences. We focus on an instrumental social technology, that is, targeting, which is a type of data-driven personalized information provision to manipulate customers' beliefs about service quality. We propose a Hotelling model wherein customers are sensitive to the delays for service while making Bayesian belief updates based on a platform's recommendations. When customers self-select their favorite service, their choices impose negative externalities through congestion and welfare loss. Our results indicate that service recommendations allow customers to navigate toward the more appropriate service, thus improving matching efficiency, reducing congestion costs, and enhancing aggregate customer welfare. We further identify the role of "information transparency" and study how the platform should strategically release information by making personalized service recommendations to customers. Interestingly, when a customer-centric platform maximizes aggregate customer welfare, we identify the "value of opaqueness" by strategically withholding service recommendations from a subset of customers and notice that this effect is more pronounced for a profit-seeking platform. Our results offer a better understanding of information transparency policies in the joint design of service recommendation systems and pricing mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the effects of “choose-one-over-another” monopolistic strategies on two-sided platforms, analyzing the implications of such practices on network effects and platform economics through the Hotelling model. Our key findings include the following: (1) “Choose-one-over-another” policies enhance positive network effects, increasing multi-homing on the demand side but reducing overall platform revenue. These policies also intensify negative network effects, leading to higher prices for supply-side users and thereby undermining the welfare of demand-side users. (2) After antitrust interventions, platforms adjust pricing dynamically, increasing for one side and decreasing for the other in response to changes in same-side network effects, which in turn influences multi-homing behaviors and revenue impacts differently before and after the enforcement of such policies. (3) Without exclusive selection mandates, platform pricing strategies tend to lower prices for supply-side users, especially under competitive pressures or weaker positive network effects, potentially increasing platform revenue and overall supply chain welfare under certain conditions. This study highlights the critical role of regulatory oversight in curbing monopolistic platform behaviors to protect user rights and ensure market health, offering strategic guidance for platform management amidst competitive and operational challenges.

The application of the crowdsourcing model to instant delivery has achieved remarkable success. Various crowdsourced logistics platforms have successfully addressed the challenges of last-mile delivery in urban areas by eliciting the active involvement of the public. This study takes a dual-market perspective and, considering the high requirements of instant delivery for timeliness, introduces two crucial factors: platform subsidies and the degree of public involvement. We establish a pricing model based on the Hotelling model and conduct in-depth research on the platform's maximum profit and equilibrium pricing under different user attribution conditions. This study reveals that when the dispatching party has a single attribution, the platform can increase profits by reducing the intensity of cross-network externalities or increasing user transfer costs. In cases where the dispatching party has partial multiple attributions and the receiving party has a single attribution, lowering network externalities, increasing platform subsidies, enhancing public involvement, improving platform technical matching rates, and increasing the expected order quantity of the dispatching party all effectively increase the platform's maximum profit. When both sides of users have partial multiple attributions, increasing public involvement increases the platform's maximum profit. This research provides new theoretical support for the pricing strategy of crowdsourced logistics platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the product positioning decisions of two firms that enter a market sequentially under a duopoly competition. Two important assumptions are made: differential marginal production costs between the two firms, and endogenous entry timing of a follower in a continuous-time setting. We analyze a standard location-pricing Hotelling game with quadratic transportation costs with the points of departure being that the two firms (i) are allowed to have different (constant) marginal costs; (ii) enter sequentially in a pre-determined order in a market in which the consumers are growing over time; and (iii) are not restricted to choosing positions inside the interval in which consumer preferences are located. For the first mover, the dynamic market growth can give rise to a trade-off between exploiting short-run monopoly and long-run duopoly profits. This trade-off affects the equilibrium positions when the first mover has a larger marginal cost as well as a larger discount rate, in which case the first mover chooses its position at the center of the interval along which consumers are located. We also introduce uncertainty regarding entry and marginal costs to examine their effects on positioning and entry timing. If the entry cost of the follower firm is uncertain for the leader firm, then the leader firm is likely to choose its position farther away from the most attractive point. Moreover, we show that the follower firm enters the market earlier if the leader firm faces such uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use hotelling model to analyse store brands as a strategy for B&M (brick-and-mortar) retailers to combat showrooming. We investigate how national-brand product mismatch and store-brand awareness affect supply chain's performance. We reach four major conclusions. First, store-brand strategy may be an effective means for B&M stores to mitigate showrooming. However, it's better to introduce premium store brands. Second, the B&M store's profit grows – and the online store's profit declines – as national-brand product mismatch increases in breadth. When many consumers feel the national-brand product does not match their needs, a product positioning strategy for the store brand can help B&M retailers improve profit margins. Third, as national-brand product mismatch increases in depth, the B&M store's profit rises and online store's profit falls. If national-brand products lack many features that consumers need, a product differentiation strategy can be implemented to use store brands to fill in the gaps left by national brands. Finally, the growth of store-brand awareness will not necessarily benefit the B&M store. The impact of store-brand awareness on the B&M store's profit depends on the hassle cost factor t, and a brand promotion strategy will reduce the loss of B&M retailer's profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalized pricing has become a reality through digitization. We examine firms' incentives to adopt one of the three pricing schemes: uniform, personalized, or group pricing in a Hotelling duopoly model. There are two types of consumer groups that are heterogeneous in their mismatch costs. We show that both firms employ personalized pricing in equilibrium regardless of the heterogeneity of consumer groups. If the consumer groups' heterogeneity is significant, the profits are higher when both firms use personalized pricing than when they employ uniform pricing; otherwise, the latter profits are higher than the former. Profits are highest when firms employ group pricing among the three cases. The ranking of consumer welfare among the three cases is opposite to that of profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of the crowdsourcing model to instant delivery has achieved remarkable success. Various crowdsourced logistics platforms have successfully addressed the challenges of last-mile delivery in urban areas by eliciting the active involvement of the public. This study takes a dual-market perspective and, considering the high requirements of instant delivery for timeliness, introduces two crucial factors: platform subsidies and the degree of public involvement. We establish a pricing model based on the Hotelling model and conduct in-depth research on the platform’s maximum profit and equilibrium pricing under different user attribution conditions. This study reveals that when the dispatching party has a single attribution, the platform can increase profits by reducing the intensity of cross-network externalities or increasing user transfer costs. In cases where the dispatching party has partial multiple attributions and the receiving party has a single attribution, lowering network externalities, increasing platform subsidies, enhancing public involvement, improving platform technical matching rates, and increasing the expected order quantity of the dispatching party all effectively increase the platform’s maximum profit. When both sides of users have partial multiple attributions, increasing public involvement increases the platform’s maximum profit. This research provides new theoretical support for the pricing strategy of crowdsourced logistics platforms.

With the popularity of open source software (OSS) as an alternative to proprietary software (PS), proprietary-software firms such as IBM and Microsoft started to embrace this new paradigm during the past decades. We analyze how firms choose the software development strategy between OSS and PS, by constructing a duopoly model in which consumers sequentially purchase software and complementary services in a market that exhibits an indirect network effect. We show that a PS firm may benefit from the presence of an OSS firm, and the software market can be dominated by a single OSS if the indirect network effect is weak and the cost saving effect of OSS is negligible. We also show that the market can support two OSS if the cost saving effect of OSS is sizeable, and two PS if firms can provide fully compatible services to competitor's PS. Building upon the existing works that investigate the competition between PS and OSS, this study improves our understanding of the role of OSS in firm's software development strategy and market equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a local seller launches an app channel, it can either deliver online orders itself or use a third party service. Given this background, an interesting problem is whether and how a local seller's channel strategy will be affected by these delivery options. To investigate this problem, we focus on a local seller facing these two delivery options. For each option, besides setting the online and offline prices, the seller also determines its delivery service coverage. Assuming that consumers are evenly located along an infinite Hotelling line, we propose a joint pricing and delivery distance decision model and derive the local seller's optimal decisions in two subcases, i.e. the seller is a price taker or a price setter. By analyzing and comparing the seller's optimal decisions in these situations, we find that (i) the local seller's channel strategy will be changed dramatically by the delivery option – the seller will abandon the offline channel when it delivers itself; (ii) whether the seller is a price taker or price setter will also influence the seller's channel strategy; and (iii) unexpectedly, the highly developed just-in-time logistics is an important factor that helps the offline channel and app channel coexist in the Internet era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the basic assumptions of Hotelling model, this paper studied the game of duopoly airlines with service difference. Through the division of different service situations, the static game model of duopoly airlines was established, the relationship between airfare and position, revenue and position, service quality level and unit loss cost were studied, and the mutual influence law between two airlines was obtained. At the same time, based on the duopoly static game model, a dynamic airfare game system was constructed, and the equilibrium solution and stability of the system were discussed through the knowledge of nonlinear dynamics. The influence of dynamic adjustment speed and variation of service cost coefficient on equilibrium airfare were obtained, and the branch chaos under different service conditions was studied. Finally, chaos control was adopted to intervene the unstable state of the system, which could effectively make the system return to stability. The results showed that the maximum or minimum differentiation position strategy adopted by airlines in static game depended on the parameter range. In addition, when the service cost coefficient increased, the service quality level would decline, so the value of service cost coefficient should be controlled reasonably. In dynamic game, the difference of initial airfares did not affect the final equilibrium airfares. On the premise of providing services, small service cost coefficient might easily led to chaos of the system. A small fluctuation of any parameter might change the stable state of the system. Therefore, under the premise of the rapid development of today's service industry, airlines should build brand characteristics and fully consider the influence of competition and service quality factors when pricing. Secondly, the stable area of control system was very important to maintain market order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crowdfunding platform is a typical two-sided market, as it acts as an intermediary that matches supply and demand sides of the platform, i.e., fundraisers and investors. Making the right pricing decision relies on a good understanding of dynamic behaviors of market players, which has not been fully understood in the research literature. This research studies investment decisions of crowdfunding investors and pricing choices of crowdfunding fundraisers, in both symmetric and asymmetric crowdfunding markets. For the symmetric crowdfunding market, a Hotelling model is used to analyze investors' investment strategies and the minimum investment amount of financiers' pricing strategies. For the asymmetric crowdfunding market, a Stackelberg model is used to analyze the decision-making behavior of the dominant and nondominant players competing for the same subset of potential investors on the platform. This research contributes to the existing research literature by considering, for the first time, the two unique variables, funding progress and the lucky draw probability of crowdfunding products, as well as their interaction. Our research finding suggests that investors should invest in crowdfunding products with relatively high minimum investment, even if it may lead to the failure of a crowdfunding project. Another interesting finding is that for crowdfunding fundraisers, asymmetric markets can be more profitable than symmetric markets. Our research results may contribute to crowdfunding product pricing theory and can be applied to real-world crowdfunding campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the location-price game of two firms, where consumers with quadratic transportation costs are dispersed along the linear city [0, 1], while firms can select their business sites on a continuous but arbitrarily constrained interval [m, n] or on a discontinuous interval separated by a continuous zoning area, in which business activities are prohibited. We find that at least one subgame perfect equilibrium in pure strategies exists. Multiple equilibria may emerge when the continuous location region is far from consumers with the remote firm earning a zero profit. When the continuous region is relatively small and not too far from consumers, two firms choose to locate separately at the endpoints of the interval. When considering the discontinuous location region, the highest social surplus can be achieved when both firms are located on one side of the zoning area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within online advertising, there has been remarkable growth in display advertising. Our study focuses on the publisher's allocation of its targeted advertising inventory – to this end, we employ the Hotelling model and use maximally representative allocation in our calculations. We then determine the supremum and infimum prices of a guaranteed contract allocated to advertisers. Rather significantly, our model provides a hybrid channel strategy for a publisher that allows the traditional method of targeted advertising and real-time bidding to coexist. We thus demonstrate the difference in each strategy's outcome. The study reveals that the revenue of the publisher increases when it employs a hybrid channel strategy. Further, advertisers can bid for real-time bidding impressions in pursuit of high user conversion and simultaneously purchase a guaranteed contract in advance to reduce risk under conditions of sufficient funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers a two-stage supply chain consisting of a supplier and two competing multichannel retailers and examines their channel and pricing strategies. The supplier wholesales a product to the retailers who resell the product to consumers with different channel preferences. The retailers can either operate their online and offline channels separately and apply differential pricing strategy, or choose to integrate the channels and adopt unified pricing strategy. We establish a game-theoretical model to derive the optimal wholesale price of the supplier and equilibrium retailing prices of the two retailers, and investigate the impact of consumer structure and channel integration ability on the prices, demands, and profits. We then analyze the effect of channel integration and discuss the equilibrium strategy. We find no adoption, asymmetric adoption, and symmetric adoption of channel integration strategy are all possible equilibria. However, one or the both retailers can be worse off in the competition, while the supplier can be always better off if any retailer integrates the channels. Our results suggest that retailers should be very cautious when deciding whether to integrate channels under competition, and the supplier could design other mechanisms to encourage the retailers to integrate their channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impacts of a novel business model termed platform integration , which enables passengers to simultaneously request on-demand rides from multiple ride-sourcing platforms via a third-party integrator. In particular, we employ an equilibrium model where passenger demand and driver supply are endogenously dependent on the prices and wages that emerge from the competitive interaction between two platforms, with and without an integrator. A Hotelling model is adopted to characterize passengers' heterogeneity in service preference for different platforms. We employ the concepts of a Nash equilibrium and a shared monopoly to analyze equilibrium outcomes that can arise in various settings of demand and supply characteristics with and without platform integration. We find that how the platform should adjust its price and wage at Nash equilibrium as potential demand increases is affected by the nature of supply. We also find that the profit at Nash equilibrium can increase or decrease in supply capacity depending on the competitive situation of the platforms. We build on these equilibrium results to analyze how platform integration affects the platform's decision-making of price and wage, and market performance. We find that platform integration can increase platform profit but reduce driver income, and may hurt passengers who have a strong preference for one certain platform, especially in the case of a less heterogeneous supply. • Propose an equilibrium model that accounts for the interaction among price, wage, demand and supply, in markets with and without an integrator. • Consider passengers' heterogeneous preferences for different ride-sourcing platforms. • Examine the optimal strategies of Nash equilibrium and shared monopoly under various demand and supply characteristics. • Study the impacts of platform integration on passengers, drivers, and ride-sourcing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inland waterway system plays a critical role in the domestic transport and logistics systems of many countries and also feeds and receives cargo flows to and from the international freight system. Nevertheless, the inland waterway transportation system involves several transportation modes and many stakeholders including shippers, land transport operators, river ports, and the shipping carriers, resulting in excessive competition and inefficient cooperation. This paper considers an inland waterway system consisting of shippers along a linear freight corridor in the hinterland, two competing river ports, and a waterway shipping company. Different from existing studies focusing on the subsidy scheme design for ports or governments, this study faces the reality of the central and dominant role of a shipping company in an inland waterway system, and designs two subsidy schemes for the shipping company to coordinate the whole transport system: (a) distance-based and (b) fixed-rate subsidies. The optimal subsidies from the shipping carrier to attract the cargoes of shippers to the desired river port are analytically derived, and the benefits of this coordination with subsidies from the shipping company are theoretically revealed through comparison with an uncoordinated decentralized transport system and an ideal centralized transport system. A case study involving 15 container ports along the Yangtze River demonstrates the applicability and validity of our models and theoretical results, and delivers several managerial insights into the implementation of this coordinated inland waterway system through subsidies from the shipping company. • Coordinated inland waterway transport via subsidies. • Shipping carriers provide subsidies to shippers. • Distance-based subsidies vs. fixed-rate subsidies. • Benefits revealed through comparison with decentralized and centralized systems. • A case study for 15 ports on the Yangtze River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promotion of green intelligent buildings (GIBs) is regarded as an effective way to reduce carbon emissions and environmental pollution. How to formulate a reasonable and practical subsidy mechanism is crucial to promote the development of GIBs. However, there is still a lack of research on dynamic subsidy mechanism. To solve the research gap, based on consumer utility maximization theory, combining Hotelling model, the paper constructs an evolutionary game model between local governments and developers, and discusses the decision-making and evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) of both players under the dynamic subsidy mechanism. In addition, the paper defines a symbol event and analyzes in depth the possibility of effective diffusion of GIBs. Finally, the paper provides corresponding policy suggestions and draws the following conclusions: (1) ESS exists only after the introduction of dynamic subsidy mechanism, so it is necessary for local governments to formulate dynamic subsidy policies; (2) Under the dynamic subsidy mechanism, different subsidy adjustment rates will affect the evolutionary efficiency of the system; (3) The sensitivity of influence factors from high to low is as follows: subsidy adjustment rate, financial incentives for consumers, additional taxes for conventional buildings developers, carbon trading income for GIB developers and comprehensive residential benefits for GIB homebuyers. Improving these factors can increase the possibility of effective diffusion of GIBs. • This paper attemps to solve the gap in the existing literature which only considers static subsidy mechanism. • This paper reveals how consumers indirectly influence the behavioral strategies of developers and local governments. • This paper defines a symbol event about the diffusion of GIBs and optimizes the parameters. • This paper finds that some parameters have threshold effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Technology Economics is the property of Chinese Society of Technology Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The development of second-hand bookstores has received ample attention in the book industry. However, research on their operational strategies is still in its infancy, especially concerning how they compete with new bookstores. We used the Hotelling model to investigate second-hand bookstores' differentiation strategy. We analyzed how product mismatch problems and consumer preferences affect bookstores' strategies and profits. We came to three major conclusions. First, second-hand bookstores can effectively compete with new bookstores using a product differentiation strategy. Moreover, it is better to set high prices for special old books. Second, a higher breadth and depth of mismatching will increase revenue for second-hand bookstores and lower revenue for new bookstores. Third, new bookstores' profit decreases with consumers' preferences for special old books, while the influence of such preferences on the second-hand bookstores' profits depends on the transportation cost. These findings provide valuable insights for second-hand bookstores to compete with new bookstores. An important implication of this study is that using a differentiation strategy for second-hand bookstores needs to consider the mismatch problems and consumers' preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the optimal encroachment strategy of product customization and the revenue-sharing contract in a two-stage supply chain consisting of a contract manufacturer (CM) and an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In addition to producing and wholesaling standard products for OEM, CM has the motive to manufacture customized products under store brand and encroach the end consumer market. Stackelberg game models with different strategies (encroachment or no-encroachment) under both decentralized and centralized supply chains are explored. Models analyzing CM's encroachment with product customization are rare. Besides, this paper characterizes both vertical partnership and horizontal competitive relationships between supply chain members. The findings show that it is unprofitable to encroach on the retailing market for CM when the acceptance degree of store brand is low. There is a threshold value of customization level that can gain positive demand. Interestingly, as the Stackelberg leader, OEM always suffers from the encroachment. Then a revenue-sharing contract is designed that can fully integrate the decentralized supply chain and obtain a contract-implementing Pareto zone. Furthermore, a numerical example is developed, demonstrating the validity of the obtained analytical results. On this basis, some suggestions for industry managers are discussed in the form of managerial insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China aims to curb "peak carbon dioxide emission" by 2030 and achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2060, which are undoubtedly ambitions and challenging objectives. An important way to achieve this goal is to substitute coal power plants (CPPs) with renewable energy power plants (REPPs). In this context, this study establishes a government-CPPs-REPPs evolutionary game framework combined with the Hotelling model to uncover the dynamics and uncertainties in substitution. The results are as follows: (i) the substitution goes through three stages with significant heterogeneity: the initial, intermediate, and mature stages. The strategy profiles in the mature stage are an ideal choice, and it is essential to strengthen the willingness of power plants to adopt carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy storage technology. (ii) The electricity market share evolves with the changing strategies mix, and the competition shows a variation state of "inefficient–Prisoner's dilemma–Pareto optimality" in three stages. Additionally, renewable energy is the main power source at the mature stage. (iii) Furthermore, it is necessary to decrease the adoption cost of energy storage and CCS technology and maintain a reasonable subsidy phase-out level. Finally, effective policies of the feed-in tariff and carbon market tend to facilitate CCS retrofitting and energy storage system deployment. •Substituting coal power with renewable energy resources for energy transformation. •The substitution will go through three stages with significant heterogeneity. •CCS retrofitting and energy storage system deployment is essential to the substitution. •The electricity market evolves with the changing strategies mix of power plants. •Some key uncertainties have significant influences on the substitution evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of the virtual water strategy (VWS) transporting invisible water resources through product scheduling faces resistance due to limited reporting and understanding and the lack of motivation analysis for stakeholders. This study builds a semi‐quantitative Hotelling game model under different scenarios to analyse the influence of preference and material benefits on potential acceptance of VWS with policymakers and stakeholders. Equilibrium analyses of the game show that human preference can be as important as real benefits. With preference differences, it is hard to make all stakeholders accept or reject a VWS approach in achieving optimal results for environment and social welfare. To implement a sustainable VWS mode, modifying preferences through propaganda and education can be effective. The natural play of the game with modified preferences will ultimately favour a holistic VWS approach to responsible management. This model supports the effectiveness of game theory in the implementation of a VWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Science Technology & Industry is the property of Chinese Society of Technology Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As online sales increase, customers worldwide have different tastes, preferences, and lifestyles. Mass customization enables the offline retailer to satisfy the heterogeneous customer taste preferences. We adopt the Hotelling model to analyze mass customization strategy on the offline retailer to compete with the online retailer that sells the same product. We consider customers' heterogeneous hassle costs when visiting offline and the online retailer and their heterogeneous taste preferences towards the products. We aim to examine the value of the mass customization to offline retailer. We found that the mass customization strategy can be great way for the offline retailer when competing with the online retailer. The mass customization strategy can be beneficial for the offline retailer's profits than the non-mass customization strategy in considerations of customer taste preference. We also found that the breadth of the mass customization scope is subject to several factors, including mismatch cost. Mass customization is less effective when its implementation is costly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some enterprises recently start to offer the flexible trade-in option to attract customers from competitors, in contrast to the simple one that only allows them to return used products to the same manufacturers for new. Based on analytical and numerical analyses, this study compares the environmental impacts of two trade-in strategies (simple versus flexible) in combination with different carbon tax policies. From the perspective of consumer switching behaviour, a Hotelling model with two market segments is established. Under the flexible trade-in strategy, the carbon emission of enterprises turns out to be significantly higher than that under the simple trade-in strategy. An appropriate carbon tax policy, especially with preferential tax rates on green products, is capable of guiding enterprises to choose a more environment-friendly trade-in strategy included in the model. The findings fill the research gap in comparing the pros and cons of simple and flexible trade-in strategies in terms of sustainable development, and provide managers and policy-makers the insights on how to promote the healthy development of the remanufacturing industry with trade-in strategizing and carbon taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In practice, the demanders (customers) and providers (sellers) of logistics service platforms not only care about prices but also are sensitive to the spatial distance between each other (because longer distance would lead to longer service waiting time). We study the impacts of spatial distance preference on two competing logistics platforms' pricing strategies. Two groups of agents (demanders and providers) are required to pay the logistics service platform a fixed (registration) fees to gain access. We analyze two commonly seen scenarios in practice: (i) the single‐homing model—both demanders and providers can only join one of the platforms; (ii) the competitive bottleneck model—demanders (providers) can join only one of the platforms while providers (demanders) are allowed to join both platforms. We find that under the single‐homing setting, an increase in demanders' (providers') distance preference would lead to higher but lower (lower but higher) prices charged to demanders and providers, respectively, and higher profits of both platforms. Under the competitive bottleneck model, however, the price charged to demanders (providers) might decrease (increase) in demanders' (providers') distance preference. Finally, compared to the case in which both sides single homing, we find that allowing providers or demanders to join both platforms would decrease the profits of both platforms if users' distance preference is sufficiently low or high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how the source of motivations for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) affects market outcomes. The first source is consumer-led; firms practice CSR because consumers value it. If one firm practices CSR it achieves a competitive advantage. If all firms practice CSR, market shares and price remain similar but profits fall, resulting in a Prisoner's Dilemma. The other source is firm-led CSR that also generates prices, market shares, and revenue that are the same as when neither firms nor consumers care about CSR case, but firms allocate profit to equilibrate its marginal valuation of CSR and financial reward to owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explain how social identity affects individual decisions when a collective action problem is present, specifically to constitute a cooperative. Methodology: Proposal of a variant for the Hotelling's horizontal differentiation model following a marginalist perspective. Results: (1) Social identity can facilitate the formation of a critical mass to trigger collective action. (2) Social incentives can be used to overcome the credibility dilemma and enable cooperation among group members. (3) The sense of identity causes that the number of participants in a collective effort exceeds the optimal group size, which implies that membership, has to be limited. Limitations: It is necessary to generate empirical information in order to have a better understanding of how social identity affects the formation of cooperatives and other forms of social economy. Conclusions: According to the results, social identity can become a resource for action, enabling individuals in a community to act collectively to overcome market or state failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegated blockchain governance is the frontier of blockchain design issues that is to improve the scalability of blockchain networks. Delegated proof of stake (DPoS) blockchains such as EOS must select a few super nodes for transaction verification. In particular, the blockchain community has debated recently on whether dividend should be allowed when electing super nodes, which might be considered as unethical or unfair, leading to an open research topic and a new research gap that has theoretical value for both academia and industry. In this paper, we build a theoretical framework to study how dividend affects user decisions and welfare in a DPoS blockchain. Based on game theory, we propose a three-player Hotelling model with two policies to study the behaviors of voters and candidates. We first use a static game analysis to show that the benefits of dividend for voters and for candidates vary with the size of reward and there exists an interval, in which the zero dividend policy would be good for the welfare of both candidates and voters. Then, we use an evolutionary game analysis to examine the process dynamics of super node selection, we find that the campaign strategy of candidates has to do with the size of platform reward given to the candidates by the blockchain platform. Especially in the asymmetric case, we find that higher level of platform reward turns to benefit candidates with large number of votes even more. Our findings are instrumental for designing dividend policies in DPoS blockchains and can stimulate more potential research in blockchain governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reality, there are many multilateral distribution platforms that compete with each other. There are differences in user-homing: some users belong to only one platform, while some belong to multiple platforms. In addition, to attract more consumers, these platforms often invest in value-added services (VASs). In this paper, combining utility theory and Hoteling model, we investigate the VAS investment and pricing strategies of a multilateral distribution platform with considerations of user-homing and cross-group network externalities in a duopoly. We compare two universal situations: situation ${S}$ (all consumers, advertisers and delivery staff are single-homing) and situation ${M}$ (the consumers are single-homing while the advertisers and the delivery staff are partial multi-homing). The main results are as follows: 1) the optimal transaction fee under situation ${M}$ is higher than that under situation ${S}$ ; 2) the optimal delivery fee and advertising fee under situation ${S}$ are higher than those under situation ${M}$ ; 3) there is a threshold of the marginal VAS investment cost in both two situations, below which no VAS investing is the optimal choice; and 4) the optimal profits under situation ${M}$ are higher than those under situation ${S}$ .

This paper studies the impact of logistics cooperation in two competing companies, one of which is equipped with a self-run logistics system while the other is not. The latter outsources logistics services to a third-party logistics company before logistics cooperation, or to its competitor after logistics cooperation with the client's service quality being in proportion to and no greater than the service provider's service quality. We find that when the service provider is a price taker, logistics cooperation is beneficial to both firms only when the service quality after logistics cooperation is moderate. Interestingly, under some circumstances, the client's profit increases even when its service quality decreases after logistics cooperation because logistics cooperation eases the price competition. We also find that all-win situations in which logistics cooperation increases the firms' profit, consumer surplus and social welfare can be achieved. Finally, when the service price can be chosen by the service provider, we propose a negotiation process in which agreement on logistics cooperation can be reached; when the firm can invest in service quality, logistics cooperation may lower the equilibrium investment level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the proliferation of sophisticated satellite applications and rapid growth in data-consuming satellite services, refining spectrum efficiency remains a critical issue for satellite systems and has been promoted by the research community, mainly from the perspectives of spectrum reuse and dynamic spectrum access. In this paper, we propose a new approach to spectrum optimization for multibeam satellite systems—introducing a market-based pricing mechanism. In this paper, a key point to be highlighted is the challenge of building a market-inspired model that takes into consideration of satellite communication characteristics, and not only simply migrating spectrum pricing of terrestrial networks into satellite systems. In this connection, we propose a differential pricing scheme which formulates the optimization problem based on the Hotelling model. The differential pricing scheme is capable of addressing the heterogeneous and tremendous effects of long and rigorous satellite links on its spectrum. Numerical results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method in enhancing spectrum efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]