Fixed Cost Magnitude, Fixed Cost Reporting Format, and Competitive Pricing Decisions: Some Experimental Evidence*
实验发现固定成本规模和报告格式会影响双头垄断下的定价决策，参与者为规避损失而调整价格，且报告格式的不同导致定价差异，表明市场力量未必消除功能固着。
Abstract Although neoclassical economic theory predicts that fixed cost magnitude and fixed cost reporting format will not influence short‐term pricing decisions, these factors systematically affected pricing decisions in a duopoly experiment. Increasing fixed cost magnitude (a pure sunk cost in this study) across experimental conditions caused participants to first lower, then raise, competitive prices. Consistent with the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion, this change in pricing behavior reduced the frequency of reported losses. This study further reveals that the accounting format for reporting fixed costs influenced pricing behavior. Specifically, participants receiving capacity costing feedback reports established increasingly lower selling prices relative to the prices established by participants receiving contribution margin feedback reports. Given that a very simple cosmetic reporting manipulation produced increasingly significant competitive pricing differences in a market setting, this study provides evidence that functional fixation is not necessarily eliminated by market forces.